Holger Lippmann, who was educated in Dresden and Stuttgart, describes his works as generative art or e-art. There was a moment in his work in which he switched from the classic pencil to a digital one. That does not mean that he does not still reach for a traditional pencil from time to time. But the focus of his artistic work has definitively shifted. It now consists of the application of self-programmed, digital drawing techniques that Lippmann applies to different topics. His subjects range from concrete motifs like flowers, to geometrical plays with figures, to overlapping matrix structures. With the help of drawing programs, he composes filigree structures and abstract-geometric patterns in order to later overlap and vary them until the pictures achieve the desired look. Although their character is abstract, his motifs are reconnected to that which is concrete. His series of Japanese cherry blossoms is especially and explicitly representational. Lippmann cites the Hanami tradition and draws the cherry blossoms in a new, stylized interpretation. His handling of the tradition and total digital adaptation of the image is executed impressively well. The motifs exert an especially fine and gentle force of power.

Stephan Reisner



Computer-aided Painting

Holger Lippmann explains his way of working with the following words: “Sometimes I take pen and paper. But, often it will happen that after a short while I continue by working on the computer. While drawing I am confronted with too many challenges that I could pursue in a much more excessive way using the computer. Full of energy, there are all kings of variations evolving from a single idea. And I can return to the starting point …. Also, with the pen in my hand I feel rather romantic, in a way like a pre-historian trying to make fire using stones. The works shown here have their basis in programs that work with random procedures. There are, to give an example, lines or cylinders that are randomly distributed as fare as number, position, size, direction, rotation, alpha value etc. are concerned. Of course I influence a whole set of parameters in such a way as to generate balanced compositions. Later on, from the multitude of patterns created, I choose fascinating compositions and combine them with others, similarly or differently--- based on fractal calculations for example---generated images and visual levels. The inner process of creation is, however, the same as in my earlier times of creating bodies of work with canvas and colour. This is why I like the expression computer-aided painting for what I do these days.