A Bow to the Original
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
A face can hide the rest of a portrait. Volker Hermes hides the face instead.
Volker Hermes doesn't name his Hidden Portraits after the people whose faces he conceals. He names them after the painters. Hidden Rembrandt, Hidden Vigée Le Brun, Hidden Anguissola. Each title keeps the painter in view even as the sitter disappears.
For more than a decade, he has searched museum collections for historical portraits and reworked their images using digital editing tools. Ribbons, jewellery, fabric and ornament already present in a painting are enlarged and rearranged until they overtake the face. He introduces no outside elements and doesn't change the original colours.
With the face gone, a pose, a sleeve or the construction of a costume has to do more of the work. Hermes learned to think about clothing in three dimensions while working in an opera costume workshop; even when a portrait shows only the front, he considers what the garment might look like from behind.
The intervention can look as though it has happened to the person in the portrait. But the person is not what he is altering. The painting is.
As a child, you wanted to become an archaeologist. Today, you spend hours in museum archives, looking for details whose meanings are no longer easy for us to read. Do you think that archaeological instinct ever really left you?
Ah, good question. Probably not. I'm the research guy. I love searching, reading, and learning. And I think it's great when existing knowledge and new insights come together. But I don't have to dig in the sand today (and I'm really happy about that).
Does a historical portrait tell us who a person was, or only how they wanted to be seen?
Portraiture underwent significant developments over the centuries, so it is difficult to generalize. But for a long time portraits were indeed a kind of marketing tool for one’s own importance. There are many portraits in which you can almost feel that it is less about the person than about rank and power.
But even among these portraits, there are examples with a great deal of soul. That, however, is due to the skill of great artists who, within the framework of a commissioned work, created paintings of extraordinary depth and humanity. This was probably more of a free extra on top of the commission.
Your works are usually named after the original painter rather than the sitter. Why? When the face disappears, does the portrait return to the painter?
I'm modifying an artwork, not a person. This is often misunderstood because viewers identify so strongly with the figures depicted that they take my interventions to be real. And even though the context I introduce often has something to do with the people portrayed, I try to keep the focus on the artwork itself. That’s why I include the original artist’s name in the title. It is also a way to give credit and show respect.
The faces are covered using only elements already present in the original painting. Yet you have said that close friends can tell what kind of mood you were in from the works. Where do you enter the picture?
I believe that, ultimately, the artist is always reflected in his or her work—at least when it is an authentic, honest work. Everything—from the choice of medium and the use of technique to the manner in which the final result is presented—is always a reflection of the artist. And I haven’t even started to consider the invention of the concept and the artistic decisions involved.
You never add anything from outside the original painting, and you don't change its colours. Are these rules there to protect the painting, or to make you look at it more closely?
For my understanding of art, intervening in a colleague’s work is a delicate decision. It’s only acceptable if there is a sophisticated concept, resulting in an original creation that can stand on its own as a distinct artwork, and if one establishes guidelines that demonstrate respect for the other artist’s work. The set of rules you mentioned is my bow to the excellence of the original portraits.
At a time when digital images can be generated in seconds, does it matter that viewers understand how much time and manual work is hidden inside yours?
Yes, definitely yes.
You study the way clothing speaks for the person wearing it, yet you have simplified your own wardrobe and worn almost entirely black for years. Were you trying to stop your clothes from speaking for you?
Let's face it: the decision to always wear similar clothing—and only black—is also a message. You just can’t avoid making a statement. But simplifying your wardrobe is much less work.
You once worked around historical opera costumes and later painted costumes for stage productions yourself. What can a costume on a moving body teach you that a painted portrait cannot?
First, something about the back side. In a portrait, you only see one side of a person. But when thinking about fashion and adding new elements that should make sense, it’s useful to imagine what everything looks like from the back, too. It’s also important to feel that the person shown in two dimensions is actually three-dimensional. Thinking back to my time working in the opera costume workshop, costume designers would submit their sketches, which usually showed only one side. We then had to turn those two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional costumes. This might sound simple, but there are many things to consider—details that seem obvious at first, but are actually quite complex.
You have worked with historical portraits, scientific animal drawings and paintings of sea battles. They seem, at first, to belong to entirely different worlds. What led you from one to another? When you look at them, what connection do you see?
Yes, from the outside, these may seem like completely different worlds. But to me, they never felt that way. If I had to describe what connects them, I would say that all these themes involve both analysis and invention.
I’m a painter who thinks deeply about painting—its history, structures, and techniques. That is the analytical part. I then express my thoughts, questions, and discoveries through my artistic work, inventing something new, bringing different elements together, highlighting certain aspects, or questioning what we think we know. Sometimes, a detail from one line of thought leads me to a completely new theme. It may not be obvious to the viewer, but for me, there is always a clear and logical connection.
How do you know when a Hidden Portrait is finished? Can a painting call you back years later?
Knowing when a piece of art is finished is one of the great mysteries of art. I have no idea exactly how it works. It just happens. But I regularly look at works I created years ago. And indeed, my feelings toward these works change. Sometimes I’d do something differently now; other times, I remember the questions that were on my mind back then. Feelings aren’t final; everything evolves.
In introducing No Feeling Is Final, you describe how a work we once loved can stop speaking to us, while another may suddenly come alive. Is there an artwork you once loved and later lost, or one that seemed to wait until you were ready for it?
I can't point to any specific work right now. But in general, I'd say that I can relate much more to the portraits of mid-19th century today. Much more than I used to. I can't really say why, either. But they speak to me more today.
You are preparing a solo exhibition in New York. What will you be showing there, and what feels different about this exhibition for you?
The amazing institutions in New York are an important source for my work. The fact that I now have an exhibition there is very moving and meaningful to me. I’m showing my versions there, where the originals are just around the corner. And I’m displaying them in a space that, in the spirit of a salon, brings together works from a wide range of centuries. I find that special; I’m excited and truly looking forward to it.
Opening image: Hidden Vigée-Lebrun III, 2021. Photocollage based on a portrait by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun.
Portrait: Volker Hermes in his studio. Photograph by Franz Schuier.
Hermes’s first solo exhibition in New York opens at 44DeVore on 16 September 2026, with sixteen works based on paintings and sculptures spanning nearly two thousand years.
No Feeling Is Final is on view at MACA Copenhagen until 24 January 2027.