Ernie Luley Superstar

Who does not fall in love with Ernie’s Hair Paintings? They have been sleepers in certain Berlin and London collections for some years now.  “Hair” seems to be the perfect subject for him to show his incredible technique of painting, and the “Man in a Golden Helmet” by Rembrandt comes immediately to mind.  In his artists studio, Ernie demonstrates perfectly how “gold” can be created simply with oil colours. He loves to paint...

Who does not fall in love with Ernie’s Hair Paintings? They have been sleepers in certain Berlin and London collections for some years now.  “Hair” seems to be the perfect subject for him to show his incredible technique of painting, and the “Man in a Golden Helmet” by Rembrandt comes immediately to mind.  In his artists studio, Ernie demonstrates perfectly how “gold” can be created simply with oil colours. He loves to paint structures, so he adds fur or fabric to his models.

When his women are painted from behind or are set in his surrealistic arrangements, they get very bossy – not only by their boots. On one hand they fullfil the cliché of sex objects, on the other you feel that you'd better not come too close because they are in fact gory monsters. With this in mind, his Hair Paintings become even more mysterious.

So he paints by his own words what he is afraid of: wolves, women, pain. He paints, what he thinks he cannot understand and what he wants to possess. To this the artist: “Only thus I can survive.”(http://ernie-luley.de/)

Maybe Ernie Luley is one of the greatest masters of our time. His technique is highly elaborated, yet never slick. He plays with the viewers as he leads them into traps and twists them. And above all: He´s a true goldmaker….