* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
The main subject in Harding Meyer’s work is his intensive pursuit of the artistic rendering of the human face. The subtle differences in the artistic realisation of each single motif are indicative of this intensive preoccupation. The single images, which were worked out over weeks and months, are consistent within themselves. In direct comparison, they reveal their – in every way – multi-layered origin. The faces which serve as the basis of most of Harding Meyer´s paintings, are originarily taken from the media. Catalogues and magazines, movies and television are the pool from which the painter serves himself. The original images rarely boast an artistic composition in themselves; rather, they are anonymous mass goods. Out of this flood of images Harding Meyer isolates the faces – which is in itself already a significant act. The face, which like no other part of the body conveys the individuality of a person, is brought back from mass medial use into a context of individual impact. In this moment of decontextualisation the faces carry the traces of their medial origin, which may even intensify through the particular way in which Harding Meyer captures them.