For Héctor Jenz, a Concept Artist who draws and paints both for work and for pleasure, Leonardo da Vinci is his role model. Today he's the star of our From my studio section.
1. When and why did you start painting?
Well, like many others of my generation, I started out drawing scenes from Dragon Ball. But that was just the subject matter. The truth is that my mother painted in oils, self-taught, so I've always had canvases, paints and references around the house. Thanks to that I have the ideas of light, volume and colour very much built in.
2. What time of day do you prefer for painting? How much time do you devote to painting?
The truth is I like painting around midday and at night. But because of my job I spend all day drawing. I'm a Concept Artist at a company that works on video games among other things, and my job is to bring fictional worlds to life with a graphics tablet. When I get home I'm not exactly keen on carrying on drawing. I feel like switching off at the gym, watching a series or a film, reading or just calling my friends for a chat.
3. Of all the paintings you've done, which is your favourite? Why?
I'd say the portrait of Marisol on canvas board. It's four strokes and a couple of watercolour gradients, but every time I go to my parents' house I stand there looking at it for a while. There's something about it that dazzles me... I drew it in a burst of inspiration after watching an old film starring the artist...
4. If you could be reincarnated as a master of art, who would you have liked to be?
Leonardo da Vinci, without a doubt. He's my role model and in many ways I'm like him. I've always projected everything towards the future, I worry about the future and its sustainability, and about a wellbeing that can be reached through art, creativity and innovation. Like the genius, though to a lesser degree, I'm multidisciplinary. I'm passionate about drawing, but I love astronomy, metaphysics, philosophy, botany, history, science... I'm always juggling a thousand and one articles, current and old, trying to be a bit more complete. I try to surround myself with people who bring me new knowledge through their experience.
If I were given the choice, "what do you want to do with your life? we'll give you whatever job you like", my only answer would be: study. I'd like to have more time to learn. To acquire knowledge and pass it on. So drawing and painting are things that come easily to me, but I always have other interests waiting. For instance, right now I'm very interested in vertical gardening and eco-sustainability, and in psychology too. Very different subjects, but for me they're vital... and they end up influencing my artworks.
5. What is or what are your sources of inspiration?
Everything, my surroundings. But lately I've been very influenced by TV series, film and literature. A few months ago I watched the film Grease and felt a jolt of inspiration. In two days, on cardboard boxes I found in the street, I painted a 150 x 50 portrait of the film's leading women. Right now it's one of the artworks I'm proudest of. But I've also been out walking in the countryside, seen two dried thistles, pulled them out of the ground and run home to draw them... I'm really not someone who likes drawing for the sake of drawing. If I have time, as I said, I spend it on other subjects, which in the end also give me background for my drawing. But if I get an artistic impulse, like the one with Grease, I get nervous. I have the artwork visualised in my head before I even have the canvas, and if I don't get it out of there and down on the surface it upsets me. So as a rule, when that happens, I drop everything I'm doing and start painting. Let's say that in those fleeting moments of inspiration art really does rule my life.
6. Of all the art movements, which one has the greatest influence on your artworks?
Hyperrealism has always fascinated me. And Expressionism too. I see myself as very influenced by both in my artworks. I always try to create hyperrealism with expressive touches... my painting teacher in my first year at university always told me I had a very interesting mix of styles, but I think I should still go deeper into it... in fact I'll keep doing that all my life, because you learn something new every day and ideas and concepts change. I haven't found myself as an artist yet, but I think I'm on my way. I think I'll get there when I find a good place to live, and I'd bet it will end up being somewhere in Asia...
7. What does art mean to you? What part does it play in your life?
Art in general gives me life, because I like knowing more about the stars, tropical plants or extinct species, but hearing a song and having it inspire an image in you, watching a film and having it guide your hands into writing a few verses... I think you need a special sensitivity for that. I like to think I have that something and I try to use it to convey an emotion or a feeling to other people, and in other cases to feel good about myself. I think that if painting, drawing, music, acting all disappeared overnight... human beings would stop dreaming. They'd have no goals and everything would end up dying. I hope that in the near future art recovers the importance it had in the past and stops being seen as a "second-rate" profession or an "alternative" lifestyle.
Discover Héctor Jenz's artworks here
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