Rembrandt and I

Rembrandt dared painting notables, people in power as real persons. So did I with Kate Middleton.
With extracts from "Simon Schama's Power of Art" Rembrandt (TV Episode 2006).
Rembrandt was and remains my main artistic inspiration.

A sketch of Rembrandt I did in 1991.

Radio interview of Yves Messer

Interview of artist Yves Messer conducted on June 15, 2013 at "Positively Autistic: The Poetic Vision with Erik and Sandy" 

"Expectations": my portrait of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge

"... as the Duchess of Cambridge’s first official portrait was unveiled to the public yesterday, art critics were, unusually, largely united in their condemnation.

‘Ghastly ... rotten ... an out and out disaster,’ was the view of the editor of the British Art Journal, Robin Simon. 

‘It’s only saving grace is that it’s not by Rolf Harris,’ was the best that David Lee, now editor of The Jackdaw and a former editor of Art Review, could manage.

" 

From Daily Mail 

 © Paul Emsley (2013)

This is my response to Paul Emsley (a 2007 winner of the National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award for portrait painting) who took three months and a half to do "this." It took me one week to do mine YET always have been refused to even be part of this National portrait gallery so-called "competition" !  

For the record: I am a Republican in the tradition of a Thomas Paine, I am not a monarchist. I therefore consider monarchy as an institution belonging to the past and should remain there. Although I disagree politically with the institution, I respect persons such as Kate Middleton.

Note: 
Few have shown some disappointment, because my portrait "doesn't look like a photograph" and that she is not "glamorous" enough, not "smiling" as she uses to, etc. (Then why a painting? What about Kate Moss by Lucian Freud?)
In my paintings I always focus on the personality of the subject and try to avoid the distraction of pomp and 'perfection' attached to an officially commissioned portrait.
My portrait's title is 'Expectations' as there are so many, and at different levels, from those of a future mother and beyond.
I therefore find painting her "branded smile" to be inappropriate, from my perspective.
Hence the title, because many "expect" so much from a portrait!
I dared painting her as a real person.
If it is a crime, I apologize.

Note:
Kate Middleton and Prince William left St Mary's Hospital on July 23 with the royal baby boy in tow. Watching live, I was amazed by how much Kate Middleton looks like the portrait I did in mid-May. I called it "Expectations" adding a sunny background since I painted with that day in mind. Yes the day the baby was born was sunny and once she appeared outside of the hospital with him, she looked so much like my painting, especially her hair (for which some harshly criticized me). I was right, my  critics were wrong. PS: I am not a psychic.

Indifference

This post has moved at my new blog "Artivism, or Art with a Conscience".

1. Stardust

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson

We talk about the cycle of life on Earth, but it exists in the heavens as well. Stars are born, live out their existence, and then some explode when the hot Iron core of supermassive stars finally is unable to withstand the gravitational pressure and causes the star to explode and die. When they die, their outer part is driven into space, they scatter into the Universe the elements needed for planet formation and, eventually, for life to arise. 

Death of a star leads to the birth of life somewhere far away in the galaxy. As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, we are "star stuff..."  

I chose the Crab Nebula as my background, that is all the "star stuff" that remains of a tremendous stellar explosion.  The Crab Nebula has been an important part of own human history, dating back to early Chinese and Arab astronomers as early as 1054. It is such a massive explosion that the  energy radiated out in this explosion is more than the total energy emitted by our star, the Sun during its entire life time. A Supernova explosion in a galaxy is brighter than the rest of the entire galaxy! In 1054, this celestial event was so bright that it was seen in the day time. It was easily the brightest object in the sky, besides the Sun and Moon, for several  months.

Birth and Death don't they look like the two faces of the same coin? 

The death of a star leads to the birth of complex life form. Isn't this amazing? Earth, life on earth, we humans all are made up of supernova explosions such as the Crab Nebula. 

As humans, we are part of this phenomenon called "Life". Our existence  depends entirely upon our ability to reproduce ourselves, to procreate. Hence the composition of my painting; a sexual intercourse between a female and a male, both remnants of stardust acting on top of the Crab Nebula... 

This painting will be part of my exhibition on art + science "Two Cultures?".

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. – Carl Sagan 

2. "A Star is Born"

In 1995, the Hubble telescope captured a spectacular image of the Eagle Nebula. Dubbed the 'Pillars of Creation', scientists believe these images to show the birth of new stars; interstellar hydrogen gas and dust are incubators for new stars. 

This painting will be part of my upcoming exhibition on art + science "Two Cultures?".

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. – Carl Sagan 

"Stardust" (2013) © Yves Messer

Carl Sagan and his wife told their daughter:

"'You are alive right this second. That is an amazing thing,' they told me. When you consider the nearly infinite number of forks in the road that lead to any single person being born, they said, you must be grateful that you’re you at this very second. Think of the enormous number of potential alternate universes where, for example, your great-great-grandparents never meet and you never come to be. Moreover, you have the pleasure of living on a planet where you have evolved to breathe the air, drink the water, and love the warmth of the closest star. You’re connected to the generations through DNA — and, even farther back, to the universe, because every cell in your body was cooked in the hearts of stars. We are star stuff, my dad famously said, and he made me feel that way."