Interview with Matthias Schardt

Matthias Schardt's strengths are dramatic pictorial narratives with a focus on the portrayal of people. His expressive illustrations make him a sought-after artist for reports and portraits in newspapers and magazines. In the following interview, he gives us exciting insights into his work.

Let's start with a very basic question: Matthias Schardt, what is a drawing?

On the surface, it's simple: line on ground. Less obvious, however, are the inner laws - I would say that more or less all drawings follow a very specific logic, and that is the logic of the game!

What does this game consist of?


The comparison with dance is helpful here. If I were to claim that dance is a game with your own body in relation to rhythm and music, that would probably be relatively obvious. But a drawing is ultimately exactly the same. The ‘playfulness’ of both disciplines is very closely related - drawing also plays with rhythm, tension, strength, tenderness, anger, joy, determination, timidity, sobriety, concentration, nonchalance, casualness and much more. In dance, this can be read directly from the dancing body and in drawing from the line.

Although many of your commissioned works are realised digitally, you stay as close as possible to analogue drawing in terms of style. How do you manage to preserve the analogue character in your illustrations?

This essentially has to do with the fact that I have always done a lot of analogue painting and drawing using all kinds of techniques. I have a clear idea of how I stage ink, pencil or watercolour. I try to imitate the special characteristics of these drawing techniques in Photoshop by adjusting the brush tips until they come as close as possible to the original. Photoshop is not a magic box that creates great drawings all by itself. It's a drawing tool like any other, with the great advantage of being able to rationalise work steps, which is extremely helpful for digital reproductions - and with the disadvantage of lacking a tactile feel. In the end, nothing beats a drawing on paper!

You are often commissioned by newspapers and magazines to illustrate reports. How do you manage to present complex topics in your pictures in a concise and understandable way?

I don't sit down directly at the computer, but often go into the forest for an hour first - after that I usually know what to do. It's about finding key scenes or key motifs that give the story a decisive twist. Sometimes these are simple objects, sometimes scenes with a complex plot. These have to be transformed into a convincing pictorial narrative.

In your reportage illustrations, you place a special focus on the portrayal of people. How do you go about developing characters in order to capture their individual stories and emotions?

Here, too, the character must first develop in my mind's eye. And then I do a casting in my character database - it's now quite a large collection of character heads that I've found on the internet over the years. I usually find what I'm looking for here, but I adapt my template even further. Everything else is, in a way, acting!

What are the biggest challenges when illustrating reports, especially when it comes to sensitive or controversial topics?

It's a balancing act! When illustrating highly sensitive topics, I often have remorse and fear of slipping into clumsy infotainment. In this respect, there are a number of things to avoid: never become too explicit, never ‘sex sells’, unless sexualised content is a necessary part of the story, but even then restraint is urgently required. I like to tell sensitive topics indirectly by only hinting at the story and leaving the rest to the imagination. For example, this little golden bottle with the greasy contents: it is part of a report in Stern about unconditional worship and the resulting abuse - there is no need to say or show anything more.

One particularly remarkable project was the animation for the exhibition in the Munich Palace of Justice about the trial of members of the ‘White Rose’. How did you approach this historically significant topic and what challenges did you face in realising it?

I did a lot of research, read a lot, watched historical films and researched images, because many things had to be historically accurate - the protagonists, the room, the clothing and the uniforms. The courtroom was extremely elaborate: I recreated it completely to scale in After Effects. But it was worth it, because the animation is about events in the very room you are in as a viewer. It blew me away when I stood there for the first time at the opening and saw my animation in the context of the exhibition: it worked, you could see and feel the correspondence, the room came alive, the process was suddenly present. And that was extremely scary!

What advantages do you see in the creation of portraits in a corporate context? What role can portrait illustrations play in the branding and external presentation of companies?

When employees are introduced in a corporate context, this is generally done with very clichéd staged portrait photos. Even though I am often provided with exactly these kinds of photos as a template, I take away the stilted and posed aspect in my drawing - my aim is to achieve a greater naturalness and approachability. This impression is supported by the line, because a drawing is the product of empathetic perception and not a machine. Whenever a company attaches importance to customer proximity and authenticity, drawn portraits are an excellent means of communication and, not least, a unique selling point.

What advantages do you see in the creation of portraits in a corporate context? What role can portrait illustrations play in the branding and external presentation of companies?

When employees are introduced in a corporate context, this is generally done with very clichéd staged portrait photos. Even though I am often provided with exactly these kinds of photos as a template, I take away the stilted and posed aspect in my drawing - my aim is to achieve a greater naturalness and approachability. This impression is supported by the line, because a drawing is the product of empathetic perception and not a machine. Whenever a company attaches importance to customer proximity and authenticity, drawn portraits are an excellent means of communication and, not least, a unique selling point.