Swiss tryst with India through art

Recently Embassy of Switzerland organised an art exhibition at their art gallery
in collaboration with the Kriti Gallery of Varanasi. The exhibition was inaugurated
by Swiss ambassador to India Dominique Dreyer. Five Swiss artists presented a delightful interplay of realistic and abstract compositions. A review by Qazi M. Raghib

India's rich culture has charmed many visitors to this land. Five Swiss artists also fell to the charms of India and this exhibition was basically their interpretation of India through their works of art.
Jakob Jenzer, Johanna Naaf and Guillaume Estoppty have created their works while living in Varanasi for the past six months. Marecellus Steiner, lived in Haridwar and drew his inspiration from what he saw and experienced during his many trysts with the serene Himalayan range. Fabienne Zimmermann studied Asian and Islamic art. The varied experiences she gathered while living, traveling and working in India over the last two years, inspired her to paint.

Fabiene Zimmermann is a very realistic artist. She plays with colour fabulously and forms take birth from the mixing of tone and texture. Her paintings capture the whole universe in one frame and use of acrylic colours give a new dimension to her compositions. She is like a philosopher and communicates her thoughts to humanity through her images and aesthetics. Her creative impulses are not bound to a particular form or image though some shapes seems to find their form naturally - perhaps it's her sixth sense which guides her oeuvre. Some times her canvas shows the childish forms merging with mature images, which gives completeness to her composition.

Jakob Jenzer has done most of his work in ink and charcoal medium creating wonderful images with mature hard firm lines. He certainly is endowed with a unique technique as he draws different images using both his hands. His images resembled that of Souza and some forms resonate with that by Jatin Das. His compositions are small but contain a lot of meaning. He has good
command over anatomy and makes perfect forms in perspective.

Johanna Naf's compositions looked abstract and had geometrical elements. She used transparent paper base with water colour forms and in some works she has used another base shadow to give new dimension. The artist is very widely known in Switzerland and works in many mediums. She does sculpture, installation in different mediums like wood and bronze.
In this exhibition, she displayed four of her works which were all created by colour patches and mixing of tones with grey shadow. Her compositions were in tune with the mores of the 21st century and she came across as the innovator of
the latest treatment of colour
and forms.

Guillaume Estoppy's works are akin to a piece of architectural drawing with perspective image. He uses pencil colour in his composition on paper with subdued tones, his figures are very much geometrical and add new dimension to his thought process and creativity. His compositions were very large and needed at least ten foot visual distance to understand the whole object. His compositions were unframed thus giving wings to his aesthetic sense which sort of spread on the wall.

Marcellus Steiner is very impressed by Indian culture and their forms. All his compositions were based on Indian cultural nuances and Indian rhythm of life. His treatment of forms is realistic with strong anatomy and bold strokes. Some times his composition looked like a photographic image. This very young and talented Swiss artist uses simple, straight forward forms and thus his work is easy to understand.

The exhibition was curated by Christine.Liechti of Swiss embassy and Navneet of Kriti art gallery of Varanasi.