Reinhard: Going Full Speed Ahead
The unbridled talent of an artist tantalizes us with whimsical art and a touch of humor & eroticism
GO!
Reinhard Schmid’s self-portrait is the ultimate picture worth a thousand words. He has a true love for riding his motorcycle and an interest in machines and engineering from his years as a submarine navigator. This all comes full center in his self-portrait as he dons a helmet, riding a mechanized bee with wings spanning beyond what we can see. It launches that feeling of freedom that only an open-air ride can give. The ride and rider humorously share the same grin of excitement reminding us that what we do and accomplish are extensions of who we are. The flower in one hand represents “beauty” as part of his artistic endeavors. Going even deeper, he has shared that he is “naturally curious and … fascinated by the miracles of nature and life.” In the other hand, he holds the ultimate answer to why he’s been so successful as an artist — his “GO sign”. It is in sharp contrast to the stop signs often seen in our lives, holding us back from progressing forward.
As an artist, I am naturally curious and I am fascinated by the miracles of nature and life.
A Way of Life
Born in Weiden, Germany in 1960, this progression forward has always been Reinhard’s way of life. There were no obstacles in the way of parental disapproval over his passion for art.
In fact, at the age of 3, Reinhard clearly recalls his father, also a painter, placing a brush in his hand and setting up a tiny table to “work” alongside him. Even in the face of challenges that came along with being a self-employed artist, his parents continued to encourage him to follow his passion.
If you’ve ever heard the quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with … ” this was a scenario that repeatedly played throughout Reinhard’s childhood. Artist friends would often come to visit his parent’s home where they would all spend quality time talking and painting together. It was the perfect foundation for the success he would enjoy later in life.
Ripe for Success
Reinhard’s father, Rudolf Schmid, taught him classical glass painting techniques. A niche of this art, dating back to the third century, is Hinterglasmalerei, also known as reverse glass painting or sous verre meaning “under glass”. Reinhard’s father found a way to make pencil stick on glass in this technique of reverse glass painting. Reinhard takes the sous verre technique — one that includes his own refined pencil and watercolor methods — and combines it with the oil painting techniques of the old master painters of the time roughly from the Renaissance to the 18th century. He is the only known painter today to master this style of art to this degree.
Reinhard believed that traveling and living in different areas were always a good way to build an open mind. In the 1990s, he worked with Jaro Art Galleries on Madison Avenue in New York, which also exhibited his work at the New York Art Expo. Since 1990, he’s operated his own gallery. From 1991 to 2001 he maintained a residence in Chicago, IL and from 1993 to 2013 he was the curator of the so-called “Gewölbe der Geheimnisse” (“Vaults of Secrets”) in Viechtach. It is a small town in the Bavarian Forest, in southern Germany, where he worked for more than 10 years on large scale versions of tarot cards on glass. In 2007 he started the ”Venusmaschine” project, in which he transforms his more than 300-year-old house into a large, three-dimensional piece of art.
His works can now be found in both private collections and galleries across Europe, United States and Japan. Most recently, since 2018 he started to create rare digital art as one of the earliest artists on MakersPlace.
How the Whimsical, Humorous, Erotic & Surreal are Made Real
Reinhard depicts contemporary, figurative, and surreal images with a balance of female and male elements, often through a whimsical eye and a wink of humor and eroticism.
He uses digital tools for fine tuning compositions or testing color combinations of his traditional works, and also to create new art based on his finished traditional works. By scanning or taking photos from all stages of his traditional paintings he is able to digitally create something new and different.
His traditional work consists of graphite pencil, watercolor and oil on reverse side of glass, as well as oil painting based on the methods of the old Flemish painters from a few hundred years ago where the finished painting often looks like a sepia-colored photograph. This tedious method of combining layers of color and thin oil glazes is worth the light and depth it creates in a painting. It is almost impossible to reach with any other technique.
All artworks start with giving shape to an idea by making a quick sketch on paper. Then starts the search for reference material, and working with models “to bring all the bits and pieces together in a more and more refined draft”. Being happy with the overall design, he continues on glass or canvas, making little changes along the way, particularly with the final colors.
A New Original Artwork: Book of Revelation
Coincidentally, Reinhard began plans for his most elaborate digital creation to date — Book of Revelation — prior to the current apocalyptic turn of events. The digital creation builds on physical work done back in 2006 and refers to Revelation 17 of the Christian Bible from the Apocalypse of John. But this work was created to portray the cultural heritage of mankind rather than sending out a religious message. Any connection to current events was not made with conscious intention.
The piece is a visual storybook of sorts with the inclusion of a “book” cover in support of the Book of Revelation. Along with the complexity in method, the piece takes on a complexity of meaning through symbolism. The work depicts hell-fire infinitely burning from the eyes and mouth of the Whore of Babylon as her hair twirls into the shape of the devil’s horns while she rides the beast. It fades into the background to reveal the devil regurgitating data in its most basic language of zeros and ones, only to be literally crossed out by the symbol of the cross in the liturgical and royal color of purple — a symbol of the lamb’s triumph over evil forces.
A written description can only do so much, to see Reinhard’s dramatic and apocalyptic story unfold, you’ll just have to press play.
The original artwork, created on the reverse side of glass, started off with a graphite pencil drawing, a layer of watercolor, and finally several layers of oil to finish. Layers of complexity in digital methods were added through video animation using Adobe Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere. The piece also features the audio work “Runway” by @vachemorte.
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Top Selling Pieces
Accomplishments
• Solo show at Jaro Art Galleries, NY and having my work at the New York Art Expo in the 1990s
• Being accepted as a member of the artist group Libellule with a long list of international exhibitions
• Salon Comparaisons, Grand Palais/Paris since 2009
• Award “Glasstraßenpreis 2014”
• Showing my self portrait at the MEAM, Barcelona 2017
• Pigmalion Art Colony, Serbia 2018
• Biennal of Brabant in Tilburg, NL with the prestigious Van Loon Galleries 2019
• Several features on German TV, particularly a 20 minute episode in “Faszination Glas” 1997
• Coorganizer of “Phantastische Venus”, international exhibition with 70 professional female artists from all over the world, Viechtach, Germany in 2015
• Working with a group of children at a local special needs school
