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The energy in the river: art from Hamburg
· Updated: · 8 min read
When Marco Maximilian Bender began creating art in his living room back home in Eimsbüttel in his spare time, he nearly set his long full beard alight. Around three years and many outbursts of anger later, the Hamburg resident now sells his paintings to customers all over the world. We spoke to the artist – who would never describe himself as such – about the energy he draws from painting, finding balance amidst the stresses of everyday life, and the significance of art.
Abstract? Marco has to think. He pauses briefly; his tattooed fingers seem to be wrestling for an answer. “I don’t know if you can call my paintings abstract,” replies the Baden-Baden native a few seconds later. This scene is special in two ways: for one thing, it’s not often that Marco is at a loss for words. And it shows just how unusual and, at the same time, special his works are.
It took a long time before he found the right paper and the right mix of elements. And it cost a lot of money and nerves: “At the start, the pictures were flying around the flat, or sometimes a knife would end up in them. It took about four months before I got the hang of the technique.” How does Marco create these colour compositions? “I don’t want to reveal my secrets in detail, because I’m afraid there are people who might copy it. I use materials such as isopropanol – that’s 99.9 per cent alcohol – wood, a specific type of heavyweight paper, and various colours.”
Epoxy resin also brings out the individual shades vividly, and a spray adhesive provides the desired strength: “Within days, it hardens more and more and becomes completely solid, like glass.” Before the various layers are permanently set, the perfectionist has a brief window of opportunity to fine-tune the colour gradients once more with great sensitivity: “If I want to change something or give the picture more depth, I can bring it back to life whilst it’s still taking shape. But you have to work quickly,” explains Marco.
No off-the-peg art
For Marco’s paintings are out of the ordinary: using various colours, pigments, gold leaf and resin, he creates unique pieces that look as though they remain fluid even in their finished state. At the same time, they convey a depth that seems to extend far beyond the frame. As a viewer, one quickly loses oneself in the colour gradients – and the works appear different from every angle. “I always send the painting to the customer in such a way that they have the option of hanging it in four different positions. So after six months, they can say: I’ll just turn it round and see what it looks like then. It looks completely different every time.”
It took a long time before he found the right paper and the right mix of elements. And it cost a lot of money and nerves: “At the start, the pictures were flying around the flat, or sometimes a knife would end up in them. It took about four months before I got the hang of the technique.” How does Marco create these colour compositions? “I don’t want to reveal my secrets in detail, because I’m afraid there are people who might copy it. I use materials such as isopropanol – that’s 99.9 per cent alcohol – wood, a specific type of heavyweight paper, and various colours.”
Epoxy resin also brings out the individual shades vividly, and a spray adhesive provides the desired strength: “Within days, it hardens more and more and becomes completely solid, like glass.” Before the various layers are permanently set, the perfectionist has a brief window of opportunity to fine-tune the colour gradients once more with great sensitivity: “If I want to change something or give the picture more depth, I can bring it back to life whilst it’s still taking shape. But you have to work quickly,” explains Marco.
All fired up
To capture the layers permanently, things get hot during the creative process: Marco heats the components using a so-called heat gun. On one occasion, the self-taught artist nearly set fire to his impressive full black beard, which he has been growing for five years and has groomed at Eric:Barbier. There was still alcohol in the paint when Marco tried to cure the resin, causing a flash fire. Now he can laugh about his blunder. “My fiancée Joana was asleep, and I threw the burning painting onto our balcony. Then she always says, ‘Don’t get so worked up.’ Of course, that just made me even more upset, because I’m such an emotional person.” Managing these emotions has presented Marco with a number of challenges in the past. After finishing secondary school, he initially started an apprenticeship as a landscape gardener (“that wasn’t the right thing for me”), worked as a bouncer and got involved in fights. Sport was his first outlet; various martial arts and strength training visibly helped to steady his inner turmoil. Then art came into the picture: “I enjoyed drawing even as a child, but never to this extent. I simply lacked the necessary background for that.” But excuses don’t count for Marco: he caught up on his secondary school qualifications, began an apprenticeship in media design and went on to study graphic design, which was to lead him to the Hanseatic city a few years ago.
A stubborn man who succeeded
Here he also honed his artistic skills, which had previously found their way into his sketchbook during his early attempts. This was followed by portraits of celebrities such as Cara Delevingne or friends. “I said back then: ‘I’m going to paint a picture and sell it.’ People didn’t laugh, but they were very curious.” No sooner said than done – and a first buyer came along sooner than expected. “That’s just how I am: once I’ve set my mind on something, I have to do it,” explains Marco. However, reproducing a model when painting portraits wasn’t what the marketing manager needed to leave the stresses of everyday life behind. So he set to work with his own mix of colours and began creating distinctive one-off pieces in his spare time. Nevertheless, Marco doesn’t like to call himself an artist: “Being an artist doesn’t mean having learnt or studied art. For me, what matters is doing what you enjoy and letting yourself go in the process.” This is how he encourages his own trainees to reach for the watercolour set from their school days and get creative. The Eimsbüttel resident isn’t particularly keen on the traditional concept of art either: “I think people are far too quick to jump to conclusions when it comes to art these days. Anything anyone paints or splashes on a wall is abstract art. Anything that’s somehow colourful and looks like a comic is immediately pop art,” explains Marco – furrowing his bald forehead whilst his brown eyes still laugh. “I know so many people who make beautiful things, but they aren’t regarded as art because they don’t fit the familiar mould.”
“The energy must flow”
What drives Marco? Where does the inspiration come from to completely rearrange his living room in his spare time, covering everything to protect it from the sticky paints and resins? “Many people expect me to be using some kind of substance that I’ve never taken. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t take drugs, nothing at all, never have, and I don’t want to either.” For this southern German, it’s much more about using a catalyst to relieve stress and “let the energy flow.” This spiritual inclination comes from his mother. When visiting home, the couple are often drawn up to the Old Castle at Hohenbaden, right on the doorstep of his parents’ house, to soak up the energy of the medieval surroundings. It is understandable, then, that moving to Hamburg initially presented the Black Forest native with major challenges: “I’ve always been a nature-loving sort of person; I really enjoy being in the woods and love animals more than people. And when you’re faced with these crowds of people, it’s quite difficult.” He misses nature very much, which is why he focuses all the more on the quasi-meditative state he experiences whilst painting: “I lose myself in it completely and am transported away for a moment.”
