German painter Hendrik Beikirch, aka ECB (b. 1974), started spray painting walls in 1989 at the age of 15. He is especially well-known for his series of large paintings that often show portraits of older people, visibly marked by life, his signature motif in both his large-scale murals and canvases. In order to create these works, Beikirch secretly takes sketches of strangers whom he encounters on his travels and whom he notices for their certain aura and expression between hope and struggle. In some cases, he gains insight into his sitter’s life and that affects the way he is gonna portrait the person; at other times, the particulars remain completely unknown both to artist and the person looking at the finished piece. As such, his paintings are very open to interpretation whilst exuding authenticity.
Instead of illustrating famous people, he draws attention to those who have a magnetic personality or some other recognition value. Basically, he is on a constant lookout for characters who become all the more interesting because even they are centerpiece of a large mural, or a work of art on a canvas, they still remain completely anonymous. He deliberately shuts himself off from the polished and artificial aesthetic of advertising, which has now occupied a large place in public space. The prolific German artist enlarges his portraits as tall as 70 meters (230 ft.), as he did in August 2012 with a mural in South Korea‘s second largest city, Busan, making it the Asia’s tallest mural.
He uses India ink, acrylic paint, and spray paint. Spray paint might be a rough tool that does not allow pinpoint accuracy, but it does effectively reveal Beikirch’s background in graffiti, and the glance, expression and mood of his subjects, which comes out in form of dynamic spray lines, drips, and splatters. Beikirch always works with a reduced color palettes, and therefore the high recognition factor ensures that viewers now can easily find walls by him all over Europe, Canada, the USA, Mexico, Chile, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Russia and other countries, all painted in the last 15 years.
http://hendrikbeikirch.com/