Martin Harms |
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Painters' bio |
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Martin Harms was born on July 3rd 1953 in Hamburg, Germany, as the oldest child of Dr. phil. K.H.P. Harms, translator and interpreter, and speaker for the Senate of the City of Hamburg, and Giesela M. E. Harms, neé Knickelbein, an editor for various book publishers in Hamburg. Early signs of artistic talent were noticed by a friend of the family: Professor Walter Nieman of Worpswede, painter, sculptor and architechtural muralist. |
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Nieman was to play an essential role in Martin's artistic development. He effected Martin to have private lessons by the painters K. Dommermuth of Hamburg, and P.Wilson of Dublin during the 1950s and 60s respectively. Professor Nieman continued to guide the young artist with advice and constructive criticism and was ultimately to advise Martin to enter an apprenticeship as a retoucher of photographs. Nieman, who had by then become the head of the City of Bremen's Highschool for the Arts, explained that no German arts institution provided training in figurative painting in the 1960s and 70s anymore and that this was the only way to learn painting in a realistic style, which was what Martin felt he needed to learn in order to complete his studies. This apprenticeship was to prove a great asset and at the same time a serious handicap in Martin's artistic development. On the one hand it was to lead him to become one of only 5 people in Germany who had mastered the art of retouching colour negatives. This requires the retoucher to think/work in abstract "opposite" colours. This highly specialised skill was of course well paid, and the easy money lead MH to concentrate on the graphics industry and neglect art. Spells during his early twenties spent painting and doing sculptural woodcarving interupted this, but mostly the high pay for the photographic retouching was too enticing. A couple of years of retouching photographs and designing covers for a publisher of "sleazy" magazines in Hamburg's famous and notorious red light district of St. Pauli provided inspiration for a number of paintings and sculpted objects however. In 1981 Martin completed his involvement with the "Reeperbahn" by designing a book of photographs for the well known German photographer Günther Zint, documenting the life of prostitutes, pimps and policemen as well as the "cleaning up" of the area by modern city development. ("Die Weisse Taube flog für immer davon", 1982 Ernst Kabel Verlag Gmbh Hamburg, ISBN 3-921909-51-1) In 1982 MH emigrated to New Zealand. The retouching skills proved to be the main asset, effecting the residency/work permit and income. Again the excellent renumeration caused a neglect of artistic activities. The deminishing demand for his retouching skills through the development of easy electronic photo manipulation turned out to be blessing in disguise. Martin took up painting again. After a three year spell in the 90s back in Germany working on the design of greeting cards he returned to NZ in '97 and has been painting full time since then. Since 2001 the landscape of the Awhitu peninsula has provided a vehicle to express ideas about movement, rhythm and stillness, and isolation. Martin is also influenced by contemporary classical music and has contributed to the booklet for the CD "Fragment" by eminent NZ composer John Psathas. |
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Other contributors included: Luise Fong, Milan Mrkusich, J.S. Parker and John Reynolds. The CD was listed in the ConcertFM top ten selling classical CDs for three months running and has been voted amongst the top ten classical CDs by the NZ Listener for 2003.
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One man shows:
Hamburg, Germany 1970 |
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