Hans Dieter Grossmann was born in Frankfurt in 1926. He studied painting and graphic design at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin from 1948 to 1952. He became a graphic designer and later art director for Telefunken and moved with that firm to Ulm in 1957. There he became involved with teaching special classes in painting and drawing at the University of Ulm (aka Research Institute for Practical Orientation of Knowledge), which was well known for its progressive avante garde approach to fine art. He has exhibited his traditionally-made work in Berlin, New York, Kansas City, Toronto, Bangkok, Washington and Stuttgart to name a few. He made his first "computer paintings" in 1996, winning awards for this work in 1998, 1999 and 2000, with shows in Frankfurt and Ulm

Herr Grossmann's first image presented here in the Museum of Computer Art is true to his statement. Done in the style of the watercolors he created just before he took up the digital tools, we see in this piece the polished rendering style of an accomplished artist, as well as an interest in somewhat symbolic and perhaps metaphysical themes. The drawing is tight and expressive and a fascination with applied paper texture is evident. In this piece, he is proving to himself that he can maintain control of his work with these new tools. In the subsequent imagery of this MOCA presentation, we see the innovation of new technique and the search for new motifs that he rightly senses must arise from the serious exploration of radically new tools.

This collection of work vibrates between abstraction and surrealism. While the forms do not directly represent recognizable objects, there is a mysterious, deep connection to them. Many times these shapes appear to be bits of fabric blowing and twisting in the wind. I have seen these shapes in the limp drapery and bellowing garments depicted in some of Salvador Dali's work or the sensual petal shapes of Georgia O'Keefe. Combined and contrasted with sharp geometric shapes, these forms seem to burst out of still surroundings, as if the canvas has suddenly erupted or torn open. Ultimately I am left with the feeling that these pictures are of frozen moments of time, caught just after there was complete silence and just before chaos has completely taken over the picture plane.

Grossmann makes good use of certain filters and image manipulations, transforming an image until it juts out like a table or shelf from the surface of the painting. Painter's "Distorto" brush is employed to pull and push areas of color into streamlined shapes. Drop shadows repeat these forms and create a sculptural element that lends realism to the abstraction. Careful, controlled use of select bits of fractal imagery and vortex tiling are composited into the picture and do not overpower the imagery. In this way poetry is not supplanted by digital technique, but rather supported by it. It takes the control of a real master to not succumb to the flashy eyewash of multiple filters, whizbang brushes and textures, and wave upon wave of psycho-digital colors. There should be a term, perhaps "abstract surrealism," to describe Grossmann's work. There is insightful intellect, masterful control and quiet vigor here.

Grossmann's years in design have given him the awareness that an image on a phosphorus screen and a digital print are essentially two different things. According to him, he is continuously making proofs of his work on an HP Deskjet 999c as it progresses. When he finally determines that a piece is finished, he sends a photo glossy proof along with the file on a CD to his print shop. In this manner, he never loses sight of what is possible, keeping his eye on the final goal; which is a large format inkjet print of the work either on canvas or traditionally heavyweight (250 gr.) watercolor paper. These prints, sometimes up to two meters large, are then either stretched or mounted on foam board and presented and marketed as "one of a kind" art work.

My thanks to Ansgard Thomson for the communications and translations ~ WANDERER

They are near us, and yet they are strangers to us, his pictures ­ painted in his particular techniques which have become his trademark since a long time. He himself, sensitive creator of this mysterious oeuvre, remained a "well known stranger" for us, a "homeless person" residing in Ulm since more than 30 years.

We deal with Hans-Dieter Grossmann, painter (by talent and passion) and graphic designer (more by necessity as a provider for his family) ­ however, he has never become an Ulmian; the same way as he would have never become a Berliner in the past. Not that he ever had anything against Ulm with its Gothic Cathedral or personally against any citizen of this town. And here, over the years, he has gathered a group of friends around him, faithful friends of a sort rarely to be found these days. He ranks himself amongst them, but yet stays outside. He joins them-and distances himself, continues, in a double sense, in his work as an artist.

Flight into his pictures: pictures which are his real home and address. Anybody who is familiar with his work, and who has encountered his paintings at exhibitions knows the subjects of Hans-Dieter Grossmann in their "coagulated" aggregate form: There are the many water-colour paintings of landscapes, the "wall" pictures, female acts woven into masonry work or falling apart ­ the down-pinning portrayals of prominent people (without having received specific orders) or the "nude" self portraits without pity for himself, the critically prophetic "environmental' cycles, expressing a clear position, and the purely documentary pictures like the Brandenburg Gate, Ulm Cathedral, etc., as well as the colour compositions.

In summary because of the aforementioned coagulation effect which does not seem to allow distinct contours, for quite many a viewer of Hans-Dieter Grossmann's oeuvre his work may have a blurringly beautiful character. Somebody else would observe in this trait a conscious withdrawal, an attitude balancing between existence and non-existence. You may perhaps ask yourself, too, whether Hans-Dieter Grossmann's clots are simply what syncopation is in music: the attenuation of the unattenuated (tactworthy)? In this round, totally outside of this frame, quite different the shocking, entering surrealism "settlement" pictures with their Freudian instruments they could originate directly from the soul workshop of this famous psychiatrist. Here somebody engages in a self-torturing manner against the overwhelming female principle, somebody defends himself in a violent helplessness against the mythos "Woman" spreading fear, makes himself small and ugly on the one hand and reducing on the other hand the female body into a closed abdomen

Here becomes the artist-doer uncomfortable, who is always a victim, too, who confronts us with a mirror. The nightly human sides are brought to light, this renders concern, invokes opposition; causes embarrassment, this touches sectors which nobody wants to be true

You experience Hans-Dieter Grossmann as reserved in the usage of colour. When portraying and representing landscape sceneries the artist shows his a sensitivity and detail-correct design. "A strict, empathetic master who cannot be bribed" ­ thus characterized by his students, who during 20 years of teaching them the art of live painting at the Ulm Volkshochschule and of the Ulm University. Besides using nude models for live paintings and portraits he uses more and more, too, modern media; he uses self-made videos as models for differentiated means to trap faces and mimics.

By the way, video: Increasingly, he occupies himself with the wide field of video art, experimenting with its diverse possibilities in order to fully indulge the technical effects artistically.

As far as his style is concerned, he easily changes sides seemingly without difficulties: He estranges concrete objects to the abstract and compresses wobbling shadow-tissues and line-meandering into anthropomorphous creations. What constitutes for the author his card index, for him is the collection of sketches. Many a water painting (aquarelle) has its origin in the woods: There the artist's eye feels magically attracted by strange tree tumors knotty roadwork or farcical moss polsters.

A 'fugitive' pencil sketch is being streaked And at some point when the fingers are itching, when he is haunted by this well-known creator's unrest, then the sketch is selected for which he feels having a special relationship. A new oeuvre is being created.