Adrian Schiess

ADRIAN SCHIESS (Switzerland, 1959).
"Printemps. 2000.
Oil and material on canvas.
Size: 30 x 50 cm.
Schiess rescues colour from the formal limit in a large part of his works, which takes on special emphasis in "Printemps", where he takes advantage of the random roughness of the surface, evoking through colour and matter the surface of the seabed, although it could also be the ocean waves on a spring day, with its characteristic cerulean blue. Schiess has experimented with all kinds of textures, studying the perceptual effects through the pouring of pictorial matter. Through the titles Schiess suggests landscapes, hidden behind the abstract appearance. The artist argues that his works can neither be defined as paintings nor as sculptures. He even sometimes exhibits them on the floor instead of on the wall. It is a work that is born out of dialogue with each visitor: "I don't consider the panels as pictorial objects. They are things next to other things. They are paintings whose shiny surfaces reflect reality", explains the artist.
Adrian Schiess, born in Zurich, lives and works in Mouans-Sartoux, France. His work flirts with a variety of formats (photography, canvas, reflective coloured boards...) but with a single objective: to deal with the appearance of the real. Within contemporary art, they show a commitment to abstraction, which, according to Adrian Schiess, is the only way to show that which is not subject to any extrinsic determination of its own. Schiess has had solo exhibitions at the Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain PACA, Marseille, France, the Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur, Switzerland, the Musée d'Art Moderne, St. Etienne, France, Indianapolis, USA, and the Musée d'Art Moderne, St. Etienne, France. St. Etienne, France, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Germany, Villa Merkel, Galerien der Stadt Esslingen, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland, Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona, Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nürnberg, Kunsthaus Bregenz, FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Johanneum, Graz, The New York Kunsthalle, New York, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, and numerous institutional group exhibitions worldwide.