Martin C. Herbst’s Distorted Oil Paintings on Aluminum Foil

Vienna, Austria based artist Martin C. Herbst embraces distortion in his paintings, spanning from flat, wavy, and convex surfaces to the rounded shapes of stainless steel spheres. In his ongoing series on folded aluminum, Herbst presents classical portraiture in a new and unconventional way. This body of work is in part inspired by Mannerism, specifically the work of Mannerist painter Parmigianino, whose style emphasized elongated proportions and highly stylized poses with no clear perspective. In the 16th century, all mirrors were convex, and when Parmigianino looked at his reflection to paint his “Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror”, everything appeared distorted. Herbst takes this concept one step further, painting in oil on folded mirror-polished aluminum, where the subject’s face and eyes appear to break apart and are reassembled into Cubist-like form. As one moves around each piece, its mirror finish offers a variety of reflections, including that of the space it is in, where no two perspectives are alike. The once two dimensional portrait immediately becomes sculptural, even interactive, an experience that Herbst likens to discovering “hidden treasures”, the title of this series.