Jérôme Stünzi (*1981, lives and works in Biel)
Le stricte maximum, 2020
Papier-mâché, acrylic, vinyl and encaustic paint on wood, 100 x 80 cm
The artist and stage designer Jérôme Stünzi casually combines sculpture and painting on the one hand with the performing arts on the other, thus overcoming the boundaries between different artistic genres and media. For the Cantonale, he presents a figurative painting that comes peculiarly close to geometric abstraction in its handling of forms and bodies. This minimalist composition of pronounced materiality also owes its expressive power to its soft and contrasting colour palette. Le stricte maximum testifies to a poetic and unconventional view of the world.
Les Inconvénients du confort
Installation, different materials, variable dimensions
La fonte des plantes, 2020
Papier-mâché, acrylic and encaustic paint, 80 x 100 cm
Le poids de la douceur, 2020
Papier-mâché, encaustic paint, tiles, 80 x 100 cm
Dégénération spontanée, 2020
Papier-mâché, encaustic paint, spray, 80 x 100 cm
After training as a graphic designer, Jérôme Stünzi began working as a stage designer for the performing arts. He co-founded the Old Masters collective in 2015, which produced several remarkable stage plays. He is responsible for the stage design, but also participates in the creation of the costumes, the staging and the text. In parallel, he creates and exhibits sculptures, moving installations as well as images. He combines the different practices in his works, with the aim of making objects appear alive. He is concerned with giving them a voice and inventing situations or stories in which they are the main actors. Jérôme Stünzi describes his approach as follows: «In my work, I am tempted to measure myself against objects, to let people compete against the objects. How do we live/think/love in/as/with objects? I think we can learn from inanimate objects a humility, a positioning in the world.»
The jury of the Prix Anderfuhren was won over by this exploratory approach, which confounds the objects and their spaces. Jérôme Stünzi’s sculptures are assemblages of unusual shapes, contrasting textures and contrasting colours. A tension between the abstract and the figurative, the solid and the soft, the smooth and the rough is predominant. The objects created remain indefinable, yet radiate a strong presence and dominate the playful and colourful aesthetic. This illusory and only ostensibly naïve approach can also be found in Jérôme Stünzi’s paintings, in which two- and three-dimensional forms contradict each other. His works thus form extraordinary interior views and spaces that are laid out according to a peculiar logic. There, a plant can melt and become pure colour, causing stains on a seat that is perhaps in reality just a flat monochrome surface. Jérôme Stünzi’s work is much more than a skilful play of forms – he composes a poetic world, at once peaceful and irritating, artificial and elemental.
With the Prix Anderfuhren 2020, Jérôme Stünzi will receive a grant of CHF 15,000 to support the development of his work.
Text: Michel Vust, Delegate for Culture of the City of Biel/Bienne
