Marais, Paris
Uwe Wittwer
La Cloche dans la Forêt
Peter KilchmannGalerie Peter Kilchmann Paris is delighted to present La Cloche dans la Forêt (The bell in the grove), the fourth solo exhibition of Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer (b. 1954 in Zurich, Switzerland, where he lives and works). For this first exhibition in Paris, Wittwer presents a serie of paintings and watercolours inspired by works by French painters such as Paul Cézanne, Henri Fantin-Latour, and Nicolas Poussin. He also continues previous series that explore characteristic themes of his work: historical events, ruins, portraits, and group scenes. This new set of works, alongside his very distinctive use of negative images, provides him with an opportunity to extend his research on the sensory reception of images. Since the 1980s, Uwe Wittwer has taken on the role of an image collector. His iconographic sources come from various places: the web, archives, historical photographs, family albums, and masterpieces from art history. This collection reveals a search for the “right” image - one that offers more than a simple representation of a subject. Wittwer first alters the images in the computer, collaging and retouching, playing with dislocation and even stripping down the images, dissecting the smallest details to give them a new dimension. The process has little to do with copying; painting becomes a tool of reincarnation. Wittwer bestows his subjects with a new materiality, imbuing them with colors, shades, and depth, thus transforming a known or overused image into a singular and sensory experience.