Concept - FENO-men by Franz Neudeck and Otto Erlwein

Feno-men are two artists that usually work quite differently, Franz Neudeck and Otto Erlwein. They combine their works for joint exhibition projects.

Although the themes of their pictures are taken from the real world, they are abstracted or exaggerated and moved into a visionary universe, setting the stage for another planned project: a graphic science-fiction novel about planet Feno. Hence, the presented paintings and drawings are the original sketches for a more complex futuristic vision with a storyline that is currently being developed.

Architect Franz Neudeck generates abstract pictures and ideas from photographs of structures and surfaces which are then elaborated in drawings to visualize a microcosm.

Biologist Dr. Otto Erlwein draws his inspiration from the macrocosm of planets and galaxies putting them into his specific context including the fauna and flora of different earth ages.

While the worlds shown and the drawing techniques used may be quite different, the artists share their meticulous and detailed styles using computer and printing techniques. All motifs and scenes are visionary depictions of unseen worlds.

The artists’ approach to this project is never fixed. Rather, it evolves in a way that is also common to science and architecture: each new idea is the result of research and discovery in an open process - precisely analysed and worked out as to convey it to the observer.

Franz Neudeck / Otto Erlwein, 2017