“If I paint a silly little hat on a grand king who is wearing an ermine cloak but appears very toxic, then his posturing attitude immediately disappears.”

The workshop of Volker Hermes is located in a courtyard in Düsseldorf’s Bilk district. This is where he creates the Hidden Portraits that are the subject of his first book, which was released worldwide in four languages in October. Instagram has played a key part in Volker Hermes’s international success, even though he had long regarded the social media platform as the “downfall of the western world”. But in 2020, a good friend persuaded him to set up an Instagram profile. Then the coronavirus pandemic took hold and, within a few weeks, the Düsseldorf-based artist had gained thousands of new followers all over the world. Volker Hermes now collaborates with a gallery in London, has exhibitions in Italy and has been featured by the Metropolitan Museum and the auction house Christie’s in New York. We visited the artist at his workshop in Bilk, where he told us what it was like to receive a letter from American Vogue and what the Hidden Portraits actually reveal.

Volker, your workshop is in Bilk and you’ve lived in Düsseldorf for many years. How did you end up in the city?
I grew up in a small town not far from here, but moved to Düsseldorf after I’d left school so that I could study at the Academy of Arts. I was taught by Dieter Krieg, became his prodigy and stayed in the city – I like it here!

That’s quite a few years ago now. What happened after you graduated?
I finished at the academy in 2002. Over the past 20 years, I’ve completely dedicated myself to my art – with all the consequences that this brings. I’ve of course exhibited regularly but, like that of many artists, my work somehow slipped under the radar and didn’t attract much attention. Nonetheless, I carried on working. Looking back, I draw a lot of strength from the knowledge that I kept on making my art despite the difficult circumstances.

What motivated you to stick with art?
I have two accounts in my life: an art account and a market account. And it’s the art account that’s truly important to me. If it’s full and I have the feeling that I’m maintaining a dialogue with my work, then I’ll carry on. Of course, it’s great if there’s plenty in the market account, but what ultimately counts is art.
It was also important to me that I was able to get something out of the sideline jobs that I took on in order to earn money. I used them as a way of experiencing new worlds, such as the opera and theatre. In one of these jobs, I worked in the office of a workshop that makes opera costumes.

Following a few very challenging years, everything suddenly changed in 2020. You created a profile on Instagram during the coronavirus pandemic. How did that happen?
I had always long regarded Instagram as the downfall of the western world and so of course didn’t use it. But then a friend persuaded me to set up a profile – so I did! Not much happened at first. I uploaded a few paintings that included pieces from my Hidden Portraits series, in which I use masks and other objects to conceal the subjects of historical portraits. I’d been working on this for 15 years, but coronavirus meant that the masks took on a whole new connotation. And because most art historians were sitting around at home during the pandemic, and clearly were spending a lot of time on Instagram, everything moved very quickly and I was swept up by a huge wave.

What was this wave like?
It all began in March 2020, and just a few months later, I had an exhibition at a museum in Italy, the New York auction house Christie’s called me, and American Vogue wrote to say that they wanted to do an interview with me. Magazines from all over the world got in touch, which was incredibly exciting. Despite lockdown, I suddenly had a huge amount of work.

You currently have 112,000 followers on Instagram worldwide. How did it feel to be in your workshop in Bilk during the pandemic and, all of a sudden, attract so much attention?
My heart swelled! The reactions on Instagram showed me that it wasn’t just a local bubble and that a lot of people all around the world support my work. But when something happens to you like this in your late 40s, you’re of course a bit sceptical at first.

What were you sceptical about?
Firstly, I had to make it clear that my work is about much more than just masks. And I asked myself how genuine and long-lasting the interest was of the people with whom I’d suddenly connected. How real is Instagram? To find out, I took the risk of conducting a pretty crazy experiment: I organised an art party in New York, where I have quite a lot of followers. What was so fantastic was that the curators of major institutions like the Metropolitan museums and the Frick Collection actually turned up to the party, as did the collectors from Instagram. It was all real, and I spent ten amazing days with people whom I’d previously only known on Instagram.

You’ve already mentioned your Hidden Portraits project, in which you manipulate historical portraits. How exactly is your approach here?
The Hidden Portraits are my way of thinking about painting and its social context. I decided to focus on portrait painting because it’s particularly good at showing how our reception of, and our access to, this type of painting has narrowed. Society today is highly individualised, which means we each look very differently at the personalities in these portraits. Who are these people? Are they nice? Are they a duke or a queen? But I’m more interested in the society that’s depicted in the portraits, what it represents and how the portraits’ subjects utilised painting. When I take away our usual focus in a portrait by concealing the personality, the confusion that this creates allows me to open up a whole new way of accessing these old masters. But I didn’t want to have to paint new versions of these old pictures from scratch. So I came up with the idea of using photo-editing software in order to conceal the portrait subject with elements of the painting.

So you take individual sections of the painting and use them to digitally create a face or head covering.
Exactly. I use photos of paintings, cut out individual sections and put them together to create a new picture with photo-editing software. In doing so, I try to incorporate modern ideals, mindsets and metaphors. It’s an attempt at contextualising old art from today’s perspective. In other words, it’s a new interpretation that should fit plausibly into the original. Our view of masculinity – but also the way that we see women – is, for example, very different today to some of the extremes shown in the portraits, such as the undisputed power of men or the subjugation of women and their reduction to a decorative role.

Do you try to reverse these roles?
Yes, and to exaggerate them. The women, for example, are so laden with jewellery that it appears they might suffocate. My aim here is to show that they had no choice in the societies depicted in these portraits. Or I try to put certain forms of masculinity that would have been typical at that time in a ridiculous setting.

Does that mean you wish to weaken gender identities?
Alongside representation and the relevance of old art, that is definitely my main theme and is one that is currently a focus for a lot of people in society. There is much more than what is defined in the norms, and that’s why I think it’s good to broaden our perception. And I try to adapt that in the old masters, i.e. to bring them into current discourse. Ultimately, it’s magnificent art that can still tell us a great deal today.

You work with a huge amount of humor, designing masks and accessories that will make people laugh when they see the paintings. How come?
Humour is a powerful tool with which I can make many things clear very quickly. If I paint a silly little hat on a grand king who is wearing an ermine cloak but appears very toxic, then his posturing attitude immediately disappears. Otherwise, I also run the risk of being didactic, of trying to explain something. It’s almost as if there’s a tiny teacher inside me and I’m trying to stop him getting out. That’s why I like using humour as it doesn’t come across as didactic.

Your work has particularly been on show internationally in recent times and you’re taking part in a number of projects. Can you give us some examples?
My work has been exhibited at museums in Italy and the UK and at the Polish National Museum in Wrocław. I’ve collaborated with Christie’s in New York and the James Freeman Gallery in London. In Germany, I recently had a solo exhibition at the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum in Aachen. I’ve also been invited to participate in several projects, including by the National Gallery in London. And I’m regularly asked about the impact of portrait painting and its importance for the artists of today.

In addition to this extensive international media attention, you also have a new book out, published by Elisabeth Sandmann/Suhrkamp. What’s it about?
The book is certainly one of my biggest projects this year. It was released in October and has been translated into three languages. As well as Elisabeth Sandmann/Suhrkamp, which is responsible for the German version, there is also a UK/US publisher and an Italian/French publisher. The book is about the Hidden Portraits.

Despite the global exhibitions and the huge amount of international media attention, you’ve stayed in Düsseldorf. Where can you be found when you’re not travelling?
I spend a lot of time working and I’m not really one for the great outdoors, but the Rhine is very important to me and I go there quite a lot to gaze at the water. Otherwise, I like sitting in cafés, such as the outside area at Bedri’s Trinkhalle or at L’odorino, both of which are in Bilk.

For more information, visit volkerhermes.de.

Interview: Katja Vaders
Photos: Kenny Tran
Art works: with kind permission of Volker Hermes