Patrice Stellest, (a.k.a. "Stellest"; born 23 May 1953) is a Swiss artist renowned for founding the Trans Nature

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...

. He is considered an eco-futurist visionary. Stellest is one of the founding fathers of

renewable energy sculpture A renewable energy sculpture is an artwork that produces power from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric or tidal. Such a sculpture is functionally both a renewable energy generator and a work of art, fulfilling util ...

s. He is also the father of French writer Pablo Daniel Magee.

Life and career

After a childhood spent in his hometown, Stellest left for the United States, where he initially intended to study costume design at the

University of Redlands The University of Redlands is a private university headquartered in Redlands, California. The university's main, residential campus is situated on 160 acres (65 ha) near downtown Redlands. An additional eight regional locations throughout Califo ...

. Around this time, he also met

Charles LeMaire Charles LeMaire (April 22, 1897 – June 8, 1985) was an American costume designer. He was born in Chicago. LeMaire's early career was as a vaudeville performer, but he became a costume designer for such Broadway productions as '' Ziegfeld Fo ...

, who encouraged him to do costume design professionally. However, Stellest wanted to be a part of the contemporary art world, and trained at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

, co-founded by

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

. While there, he specialized in experimental art under his mentor,

Jules Engel Jules Engel (born Gyula Engel, March 11, 1909 – September 6, 2003) was an American filmmaker, painter, sculptor, graphic artist, set designer, animator, film director, and teacher. He was the founding director of the experimental animation ...

, animator-in-chief of the ''

Fantasia Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore ...

'' cartoon. After obtaining his diploma, Stellest continued his studies at 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 Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. During this time, he directed a series of short films associating artistic experimentation and music. Sensing that there was a future for video clips, he presented his work to filmmaker

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...

while the latter was directing the film titled ''

The Doors The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...

''. In 1982, Stellest received the first Art Centre Prize for ''Portraits 1982'', which highlights the place of women in the art world. This work was to be re-edited in 2005 in collaboration with

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Moby Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the ...

. In 1984, Stellest moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and took over the studio of artists Claus Oldenburg and

James Rosenquist James Rosenquist (November 29, 1933 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advertising a ...

. However, it is in the

Touraine Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and Vie ...

where, following in the footsteps of

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...

, he blossomed out artistically by initiating himself in the techniques of welding on pieces of scrap metal. He wished, in this way, to restore meaning to this unused raw material. He went on to broaden his knowledge of sculpture on metal as an assistant to Greek artist Costa Coulentianos in Saint-Rémy de Provence, in the South of France. He then became friends with

César Baldaccini César (born Cesare Baldaccini; 1 January 1921 – 6 December 1998), also occasionally referred to as César Baldaccini (), was a noted French sculptor. César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressio ...

, René Dürrbach,

Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...

and the German writer Ulrich Zieger, screenwriter for

Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Docum ...

' film ''

Faraway, So Close! ''Faraway, So Close!'' (german: In weiter Ferne, so nah!) is a 1993 German fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The screenplay is by Wenders, Richard Reitinger and Ulrich Zieger. It is a sequel to Wenders' 1987 film ''Wings of Desire''. Actors Ot ...

'', winner of the Grand Prix at the 1993

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

, for whom he went on to illustrate three books (See the Books and Publications Section). Around the same time, he began a long relationship by correspondence with emblematic exhibition commissioner

Harald Szeemann '' Harald Szeemann (11 June 1933 – 18 February 2005) was a Swiss curator, artist, and art historian. Having curated more than 200 exhibitions, many of which have been characterized as groundbreaking, Szeemann is said to have helped redefine the r ...

(This correspondence can be consulted today in Files 1668 and 3906 of the Szeemann Collection at the ''

Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

Library'' in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

). A Frenchman at heart, it is in

that Stellest created his artistic movement, Trans Nature Art. He was working at the time with the assistant of

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art s ...

, Martin Bühler, and

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

physicist-artist Bernard Gilton on a new genre of works of art bearing a message that had always been present in his mind: the defense of nature and the environment. He also collaborated with the French master of neon, Benoit Nabineau, incorporating light into his works, powered by solar energy. He shares this aspiration for Green art with

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

, Sarah Hall,

Rosalie Gascoigne Rosalie Norah King Gascoigne (née Walker; 25 January 191725 October 1999) was a New Zealand-born Australian sculptor and assemblage artist. She showed at the Venice Biennale in 1982, becoming the first female artist to represent Australia there ...

and Julian H. Scaff. The encouragements he receives at the time from his friend

Dora Maar Henriette Theodora Markovitch (22 November 1907 – 16 July 1997), known as Dora Maar, was a French photographer, painter, and poet. A romantic partner of Pablo Picasso, Maar was depicted in a number of Picasso's paintings, including his ''Portr ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

's wife, push him to move forward with his new concept. The idea is to create works in osmosis with nature, a movement that stems from

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

. This movement's landmark work is ''The Solar Head''. Designed to work at its own rhythm thanks to

solar energy Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essenti ...

, this sculpture was the first in a long series of interactive sculptures associating state-of-the-art

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

and a new message from the artist. In 2003, the German photographer Thomas Kellner devoted a reportage to Stellest, who was also the focus of an exhibition in Europe. That same year, he was chosen by Lady Béatrice de Andia, General Delegate for the Artistic Action of the City of

, for an exhibition in the gardens of her castle in

Azay-le-Rideau Azay-le-Rideau () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. Château The château of Azay-le-Rideau was built from 1515 to 1527, one of the earliest French Renaissance châteaux. Built on an island in the river Indre, it ...

. In 2009, he took part in the making of the experimental art film ''Pass:on'', written and directed by his son, Pablo Daniel Magee. This project involved eight international artists, including John Altman, who composed music for the films ''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...

'', by

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...

, ''

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

'': '' Golden Eye'' and ''

No Time to Die ''No Time to Die'' is a 2021 spy film and the twenty-fifth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, starring Daniel Craig in his fifth and final portrayal of fictional British MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by Cary Jo ...

'', or

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...

’s ''

Life of Brian ''Monty Python's Life of Brian'' (also known as ''Life of Brian'') is a 1979 British comedy film starring and written by the comedy group Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin). It wa ...

''; composer for

Barry White Barry Eugene Carter (September 12, 1944 – July 4, 2003), better known by his stage name Barry White, was an American singer and songwriter. A two-time Grammy Award winner known for his bass voice and romantic image, his greatest success came ...

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

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; and musician with the bands of

Sting Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-eart ...

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and many others, as he describes in his memoirs ''Hidden Man: My many musical lives''. After withdrawing for a brief period, Stellest returned to the artistic scene in 2011, when he produced the short 3D film ''Stellest Genesis'', drawn and animated by French graphic artist Romain Caudron and co-directed with his son, Pablo Daniel Magee, once again with the participation of DJ

. For that film, Stellest created the “''Starpeople''”, the “''Starman''” and the “''Starwoman''”: starfaced humanoid aliens coming to Earth to clean it from pollution and violence. Since then, Stellest appeared several times in public wearing a ''Starman'' mask, as it was the case on the red carpet of the Mallorca International Film Festival in 2022. Also in 2011, he illustrated the last work of Ulrich Zieger, ''Première visite dans le refuge (First visit to the refuge)'', did a series of exhibitions in which he presented ''The machine for making green babies'' and went on stage, electric guitar in hand, to present musical compositions of his own. In 2012, Dr. Paul O’Brien, a professor of aesthetics and cultural theory at the

National College of Art and Design The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) is Ireland's oldest art institution, offering the largest range of art and design degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the country. Originating as a drawing school in 1746, many of th ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, did a study of Stellest as one of the intellectual disciples of artist

in an article he devoted to

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

, and

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

. In 2013, authors Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohen authored a book on him, which they soberly titled ''Patrice Stellest''. Very involved in the academic world and the transmission of knowledge (he has given presentations in schools throughout his career) Stellest took part in 2016 along with Kathleen Deck in the ''Conservation through Creation'' initiative of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

Irvine with the aim of drawing attention to

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

through art. A lover of the

, he did an exhibition in 2018 at

, heartthrob city of artist

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...

. During that exhibition, he presented his latest short film ''Renewable Energy Art Made in France''. In 2019, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

inaugurated a course on the work of Stellest. In 2022, he is taking part in the charity initiative ''Une Oeuvre pour l'hôpital'', aimed at raising funds for French hospitals confronted with the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

Books and publications

* Ulrich Zieger, Patrice Stellest, ''Grosse beruhigte Körper'', Berlin, Galrev Druck, 1992, 112p. * Ulrich Zieger, Patrice Stellest, ''Schwarzland'', Berlin, Qwert zui opü, 1994, 48p. * Ulrich Zieger, Patrice Stellest, ''Première visite dans le refuge'', Berlin, Rugerup, 2011, 98p. * Jesse Russell, Ronald Cohen, ''Patrice Stellest'', New York, Transmedia, 2013, 80p.

Awards

* Best International Peace Short Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Dubai Independent film festival 2022 * Best Music Video Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Five Continents International Film Festival 2022 * Best Animated Film Gold Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Hollywood Gold Awards Film Festival 2022 * Best Music Video Gold Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Hollywood Gold Awards Film Festival 2022 * Best Music Video Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the London Movie Awards 2022 * Honorable Mention Award in the Best Animation Film category for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Los Angeles Film Awards 2022 * Best Short Animation Silver Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Milan Gold Awards Film Festival 2022 * Honorable Mention Award in the Best Short Animation Category for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Paris Film Awards 2022 * Honorable Mention Award in the Best Original Score category for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the South Film and Arts Academy Festival 2022 * Best Animation Short Film Audience Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the South Film and Arts Academy Festival 2022 * Best Short Animation Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the South Film and Arts Academy Festival 2022 * Honorable Mention Award in the Best Screenplay in a Short Film category for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the South Film and Arts Academy Festival 2022 * Best Sound and Music Award for ''Stellest Genesis'' at the Wildsound Writing and Film Festival - Toronto 2022

Press, TV, radio

*''Ils chantent à la lune des mélodies ancestrales'', Die Welt, 2 February 1992 *''Stellest : Une success story à la française'', France 3, 4 August 1992 *''L’art Trans Naturel de Stellest'', TV Science Frontière, France 3, France Piolet Production *''Trans Nature Art : un art pour vivre'', Radio Europe 2, 8 April 2000 *''Stellest : Pérégrinations d’un suisse en France'', Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR), 14 July 2000 *''Une introduction à Trans Nature Art : entre art et musique'', MTV, 24 November 2000 *''Le Trans Nature Art en scène'', France 3, 12 December 2000 *''Un soir un artiste : Stellest'', M6, 22 December 2000 *''Tapis Rouge à Stellest'', France Bleu radio, 14 June 2011

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stellest, Patrice 1953 births Living people Environmental artists Swiss painters Swiss sculptors