Andy Denzler (born 3 August 1965) is a Swiss artist. His distinctive technique of distorting the freshly applied surface of his paintings has shaped his entire oeuvre in painting, printmaking, sculpture and drawing.

Life and works

Denzler was born in Zurich. He trained at the

Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for thes ...

and the F+F Schule für Gestaltung in Zurich, both schools of applied arts, as well as at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, and the

Art Center College of Design Art Center College of Design (stylized as ArtCenter College of Design) is a private art college in Pasadena, California. History ArtCenter College of Design was founded in 1930 in downtown Los Angeles as the Art Center School. In 1935, Fred R. ...

, Pasadena. In 2006 he graduated as

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

from London's

Chelsea College of Art and Design Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

. Denzler lives and works in Zurich. Denzler's works are shown in solo and group exhibitions in international galleries and museums, in Europe, America, Asia and, since 2010, also in Russia. His works can be found at the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between t ...

, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montreal, Canada, the

David Roberts Art Foundation The Roberts Institute of Art, formerly operating as David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF), is a non-profit contemporary arts organisation based in London. It commissions pioneering performance art, collaborates with national partners on exhibitions ...

, London, the Tel Aviv Museum of Modern Art in Israel, the

Moscow Museum of Modern Art The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is a museum of modern and contemporary art located in Moscow, Russia. It was opened to public in December 1999. The project of the museum was initiated and executed by Zurab Tsereteli, president of the Russian Aca ...

, the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

in Washington DC, at the Museum Würth at Schwäbisch Hall in Germany, at the Burger Collection Hong Kong, the White Cube Collection, London, the KunstWerk – Sammlung Klein in Eberdingen/Stuttgart and at the Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany. Denzler Ludwig Museum2016

"I bring time and motion into the imagery, by using both time and motion. It’s an

alla prima Wet-on-wet, or ''alla prima'' (Italian, meaning ''at first attempt''), direct painting or au premier coup, is a painting technique in which layers of wet paint are applied to previously administered layers of wet paint. Used mostly in oil paint ...

technique, painting wet-on-wet; I control the speed of the painting process, because there is a limited amount of time before the canvas dries". Through the streaks of the blurred image surface, Denzler's paintings appear as if the time on them has momentarily stopped. Denzler's works move between abstraction and reality. With the classic means of oil painting, the artist endeavors to fathom the borderlines between fiction and reality. Through his mostly horizontal use of a

squeegee A squeegee or squilgee is a tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface. It is used for cleaning and in printing. The earliest written references to squeegees date from the mid-19th cent ...

for blurring the oil paint, which he previously applies to the canvas in heavy

impasto ''Impasto'' is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provide ...

and thick layers, he achieves the impression of the object's

motion blur Motion blur is the apparent streaking of moving objects in a photograph or a sequence of frames, such as a film or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single exposure, due to rapid movement or lo ...

or the notion of a distorted, faltering video recording. Time freezes. The paintings are snap-shots of events that take place, blurred, distorted movements, Freeze Frames that stylistically move between

Photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

and

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

. In his paintings Denzler frequently alludes to our life in a disruptive age of lens based images.

Reception

In a world seemingly enamoured with high definition and extreme resolution, the distorted photo-like quality of Denzler's paintings provides an alternative to our often over-glossed 'reality‘. Intent on pushing the boundaries between abstraction and photorealism, the artist captures the authenticity of the everyday, creating an honest and often intimate moment on canvas. (Reality Glitch, Schön! Magazine, November 2019) But unlike many contemporary painters, Denzler doesn't reproduce the photographic image onto a canvas to create a template for his work. Instead, he paints freehand, using the photograph as a reference, and building up layer upon layer of wet paint. Then, when he has a 'perfect painting', he deconstructs it, leaving in its wake traces of what was. The vestigial image, boldly striped with horizontal scrapes made by a spatula dragged across the canvas, has the effect of a video that has been permanently put on pause, giving the viewer a sense that something came before, and something will come after. But what remains in the present is a single transient, but captive, moment. (Creative Boom, 14 June 2017 by Katy Kowan) Denzler's new paintings unite the precision and nostalgia of realism with the bold dynamism and pulsating energy of gestural abstraction. Creating mysterious, eerie and sometimes uncomfortable moments, the artist invites the viewer into his private, voyeuristic world. Known for his signature style of thick horizontal bands of pigment traversing the canvas in thick choppy abstract strips – staccato points that add visual energy and suggest details lost in the fog of memory, time and space. (Wall Street International Magazine/Arts, 24 January 2014) Denzler analyses the medium, the ideational and representational possibilities inherent in present-day painting with dedication and enthusiasm. He has thereby secured himself an important and individual position on the international art scene. (Tages-Anzeiger, 24 August 2008, translated from German)

Exhibitions (selection)

Biennials 2016 * Not New Now, Marrakech Biennale 6, Marrakech * Memory and Dream, 6th Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing Solo exhibitions 2019 * ''Paintings of Disruption'', Opera Gallery, Seoul * ''Introspection'',

Opera Gallery Opera Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery presenting work by established and emerging artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Founded in Paris in 1994 by Gilles Dyan, Opera Gallery now has thirteen exhibition spaces in New York ...

, New York 2018 * ''Human Perspectives'', Opera Gallery, Zurich * ''The Dark Corner of the Human Mind'', Kunstforum Wien, Vienna * ''The Painter's Room'', Opera Gallery, Paris 2017 * ''Fragmented Identity'', Opera Gallery, Monaco * ''Fragmented Figures'', schultz contemporary, Berlin 2016 * ''Random Noise'', Fabian & Claude Walter Gallery, Zurich * ''Between Here and There'', Opera Gallery, London 2015 * ''Breakfast with Velázquez'', schultz contemporary, Berlin * ''Just Another Day in Paradise'', Brotkunsthalle Wien, Vienna * ''Sequences'', Opera Gallery, Geneva * ''Figures & Interiors'', Ludwiggalerie Schloss Oberhausen, Germany 2014 * ''Distorted Moments'', Ludwig Museum, Koblenz * ''The Forgotten Palace'', Budapest Art Factory, Budapest * ''Under my Skin'', Fabian & Claude Walter Gallery, Zurich * ''Between the Fragments'', Claire Oliver Gallery, New York 2013 * ''Empire INC'', Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany * ''Dissolution & Resolution'', Kunstraum Osper, Cologne 2012 * ''Interior/Exterior'', Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin * ''The Sounds of Silence and Distortion'', Claire Oliver Gallery, New York * ''Shifting Landscapes'', Kunsthalle Dresden, Germany * ''Developing Landscapes'', Gwangju Art Museum, Gwangju, Korea 2011 * ''Interiors'', Fabian & Claude Walter Gallery, Zurich * ''Freeze Frame'', Michael Schultz Gallery, Seoul * ''Dissonance and Contemplation'', Claire Oliver Gallery, New York 2010 * ''The Human Nature Project'', schultz contemporary, Berlin * ''Distorted Questionments'', Art + Art Gallery, Moscow 2009 * ''Motion Paintings'', Gallery von Braunbehrens, Munich 2008 * ''Short Cuts'', Fabian & Claude Walter Gallery, Zurich * ''A Day at the Shore'', Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles 2007 * ''Blur Motion Paintings'', Gallery von Braunbehrens, Munich * ''Insomnia'', Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon 2006 * ''Fusion Paintings'', Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles * ''Moon Safari'', Chelsea College, University of the Arts, London 2005 * ''American Paintings'', Kashya Hildebrand, New York 2004 * ''Blur Motion Abstracts'', Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles 2002 * ''White Paintings'', Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles

External links

Artist’s Website
*
Andy Denzler: Distorted Moments
in Noah Becker's White Hot Magazine *Issu
Exhibition Catalogue ''for Human Perspectives''
published by

Them Them or THEM, a third-person plural accusative personal pronoun, may refer to: Books * ''Them'' (novel), 3rd volume (1969) in American Joyce Carol Oates' ''Wonderland Quartet'' * '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'', 2003 non-fiction by Welsh ...

. Magazine Issue June 2016, page 153 ff, article in Japanese *Metal Magazine
Freeze Frame Paintings
Andy Denzler interviewed by Carlota Winder

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Denzler, Andy Living people 1965 births Artists from Zürich 20th-century Swiss painters Swiss male painters 21st-century Swiss painters 21st-century Swiss male artists UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni Alumni of the University of the Arts London Art Center College of Design alumni 20th-century Swiss male artists