EVERGLADES

Everglades features Thierry Feuz’s most recent body of work, which blurs the boundaries between natural and artificial forms. Feuz’s paintings illustrate botanical abstractions exploring nature’s life cycle. The artist welcomes the viewer into a tropical scenery:  “You have entered a landscape of a strange, humid, wet, and dangerous life.” The viewer is led through a timeless Eden-esque garden, and taken on a journey of organic life, exploring nature through a microscopic view.  What at first glance appears to be a petal losing its consistency, suddenly transforms itself into an exploding drop of vanishing colors; an insect becomes a cluster of small spirals, bubbles, and sequins.

Each painting is filled with vibrant energy created by the magnificent color palette. The artist draws inspiration for his energetic colors from everyday life.  Experimenting with the process itself and exploring the limits of his materials and colors, often becomes the central theme of his works. The artist is a true master of his lacquer and enamel technique, accomplishing a unique signature style.  

Feuz studied at the Ecole Superior des Beaux Arts in Geneva. His work has been exhibited internationally at galleries in Brussels, Copenhagen, Geneva, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Vancouver and Zurich. Most recently he exhibited at the National Academy of Science, Washington, D.C.

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. . . At first glance the painting looks like decorative art because of the motifs distributed on a white background — imagery which moves to the forefront with its colour and luxuriance. However, as one approaches, it secretes a strangeness which remains with the viewer long after he/she leaves the gallery.

Some of these images appear to be flowers, but are they really? — they are a play on transparency and bluriness, making subtle references to adulteration and organic components — at times they are very much like human tissue.

The artist uses these flowers as a pretext to play with the unmixed colours. The organic changes of the colour intermingle on the canvas, bursting and pouring out into coloured plasmas that tumble and swell in a sometimes dangerous way. At one point the painting evolves into an epidermal pleating and at another it looks like a network of vessels, cellular tissues or veining.

With straight stems, drawing a slender or curled curve, the plants gain a bewitching power which is conveyed by the artist’s enlargement of the scale.

Poisonous or carnivorous, these "harmful" flowers remind us of the faded petals of the "baroque Vanités" which begin to take over the space as well as the spirit of the viewer as he moves closer towards them. New textures and blendings of colour emerge in these dynamic paintings which dissolve into disquieting worlds, very remote from the initial reference to the innocence of beauty.

Christian Sester
In reference to the Supernatural panorama triptych, in Etats d’Art, bulletin of the Friends Society of Arts | la Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 2001.