Stefan Rüesch Swiss, b. 1963

Rüesch records and visualises aesthetic phenomena of everyday life in his work. The painter starts with a process of abstraction, in order to then implement his ideas with the concrete pictorial means of surface, line, volume, space and colour. He limits himself to the reality he sees, submits to external laws and seeks the path of painterly reduction. The painter abolishes the static-rigid system expected by the strictness of geometry and achieves a pictorial balance composed out of asymmetry. The depiction of a schematized environment seems to stand in a tense relationship to pop elements of the advertising world as well as to simulation and computer aesthetics - only to immediately withdraw from all this again. For in their expressiveness these works convey the clear inner ideas of the painter. Here, a world supposedly free of objects and places manifests itself; perspective and proportions have only limited validity. But ultimately, these works are not so far removed from naturalistic landscapes. They simply proclaim the mystery of the world surrounding us.

Proportion, balance and sensitive sobriety characterise the paintings of Stefan Rüesch. Since the beginning of the 1990s, he has been developing them incessantly, driven by ever new thoughts and insights. Despite constant perfection of his working methods, feeling and sensibility are not diminished in his works and repetition does not take place. His works are based in the soul landscape of simplicity and sincerity. The world in Rüesch's works seems orderly, calm, friendly and of childlike problem-free quality. When looking at them, one gets the impression that the hectic everyday life has been stopped and softened for a short time.

 

Images: Stefan Rüesch video cut. Portrait Stefan Rüesch