Interview Ernesto Lemke - Brickpainting: painting with Lego
Participating in the TV show Lego Masters actually started as a joke. Ernesto Lemke, artist and art teacher, watched it at home and so did a colleague. They texted each other their comments, one of them texted shall we sign up too, and the other replied: ‘Yes, let’s do it. Lol’.
During the show, participating duos receive Lego assignments and build on the spot without prior design. One of the assignments was about ‘art’. Famous international artists like Ai WeiWei and Olafur Eliasson have already used Lego in their creations. For Ernesto, a new door opened. Throughout his education (Minerva Art Academy, Groningen) and career, he developed from a comic book artist to an autonomous drawer and painter, also working with a pioneering teaching collective within education. Now, a new art form has been added for him, which he calls ‘Brickpainting’: with Lego studs, he ‘paints’ portraits. Lemke's approach is praised.