Overview

Since the beginning of his career in the middle of the eighties, Wittwer’s works have been questioning the truth behind images and visual representation. His oeuvre encompasses paintings, water colours, charcoal drawings, works on paper and sculptural works on glass. Through his works, Wittwer takes the viewer to poetical, dreamlike and picturesque worlds of the unknown. 

In search of motifs for his compositions Wittwer conducts an extensive research and delves into certain topics found in literature, film, art history, historical events, and at times, private photo albums. A comprehensive spectrum of topics and subjects emerge thematically in his works, interweaving cultural and historical references with notions of collective and personal memory. Subtly, the artist diminishes the lines of the real and the imagined, the past and the present. 
 
Wittwer’s wide-ranging series depict still lives, portraits and landscapes that are often adaptions of works by other artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, Sebastian Brant, Pieter de Hooch, Nicolas Poussin, Caravaggio or Jan van Belcamp; authors like T.S. Eliot and filmmakers Andrei Tarkovsky or Walter Herzog. Empty interiors and military sceneries are also recurrent subjects as seen in the series “Camp” from 2006, in which he outlined the daily routines of soldiers in the Vietnam War.
 
Wittwer’s works are often figurative and yet, it is not the subject alone that concerns the artist, but also the pictorial process that the original motif undergoes. It is a tireless deconstruction in pictorial fragments, a filtering and extracting, to finally carve out not just the motif but rather its pictorial potential and to critically reflect the document of the past that served as a reference. Elements are turned into negative or disguised by the blur of a soft brush stroke. This aesthetic compound also reflects in the artist's most recent sculptural works - paint on translucent glass - which embed autobiographic elements based on photographs with personal memories found in the artist's family photo album. Similar to his paintings, entire areas on the surface are obscured by strong contrasts, shadows or the erasure of a detail. While reduced aesthetically towards raw and sharp formal elements, the multi-layered structure of the surface is being enhanced at the same time. As in previous works by Wittwer, the unevenness in the final work, despite its captivating beauty, often seems to hide a sense of unease, threat, or at times, melancholia.
 
Uwe Wittwer has held three solo exhibitions at Galerie Peter Kilchmann: in 2024 “The Blind Singer Leads the Way”, in 2021 “Holzfäller.Spiegel” (Woodcutter.Mirror) and in 2019 "Im Walde (In the Woods)". Wittwer's works have been exhibited internationally since the mid 1980s. Important institutional exhibitions include “Settings of Wrath” at Musée Ariana in Geneva (2020); “The Black Suns,” Kunstmuseum Grenchen (2019); “The Spoils of Ward,” Galerie Judin (2018); “Berlin and Shelter,” Galerie Parafin, London (2018). Uwe Wittwer has participated in group exhibitions at the following institutions (among others): Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf (2020); Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern (2019); Herbert Art Museum, Coventry (2018); Museum Langmatt, Baden (2017); Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal (2013); Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Solothurn (2013); Centre PasquArt, Bienne (2012); Tate Britain, London (2011); Museum of Modern Art / PS1 MoMa, New York (2006). Wittwer's works are represented in the collections of international institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Caldic Collection, Rotterdam; the Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich; the Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen; the Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern; the Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Solothurn; the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; the David Roberts Art Foundation, London; the Musée d'art et d'histoire de la Ville de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel; the Centre PasquART Bienne; the Musée Jenisch, Vevey, the Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen.
Selected works
  • Uwe Wittwer, Fluss (River), 2023
    Fluss (River), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Portrait, 2023
    Portrait, 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Portrait Nacht (Portrait Night), 2023
    Portrait Nacht (Portrait Night), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Portrait, 2023
    Portrait, 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Interieur (Interior), 2023
    Interieur (Interior), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Flötenspieler negativ (Flute player negativ), 2023
    Flötenspieler negativ (Flute player negativ), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Flötenspieler (Flute player), 2023
    Flötenspieler (Flute player), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Portrait Spiegel (Portrait Mirror), 2023
    Portrait Spiegel (Portrait Mirror), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Spinnrad (Spinning wheel), 2023
    Spinnrad (Spinning wheel), 2023
  • Uwe Wittwer, Haus negativ (House negative), 2022
    Haus negativ (House negative), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Gruppe (Group), 2022
    Gruppe (Group), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Bühne (Stage), 2022
    Bühne (Stage), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
    Die Mission (The Mission), 2022
  • Uwe Wittwer, Im Walde (In the Woods), 2020
    Im Walde (In the Woods), 2020
  • Uwe Wittwer, Im Wäldchen nach Poussin (Into the woods after Poussin), 2020
    Im Wäldchen nach Poussin (Into the woods after Poussin), 2020
  • Uwe Wittwer, Stillleben nach Fantin Latour (Still Life after Fantin Latour), 2020
    Stillleben nach Fantin Latour (Still Life after Fantin Latour), 2020
  • Uwe Wittwer, Grosser Baum (Big Tree), 2019
    Grosser Baum (Big Tree), 2019
  • Uwe Wittwer, Landschaft negativ nach Altdorfer (Landscape Negative after Altdorfer), 2019
    Landschaft negativ nach Altdorfer (Landscape Negative after Altdorfer), 2019
  • Uwe Wittwer, Doppelporträt negativ (Double Portrait Negative), 2019
    Doppelporträt negativ (Double Portrait Negative), 2019
  • Uwe Wittwer, Vom Walde her (Out of the woods), 2019
    Vom Walde her (Out of the woods), 2019
  • Uwe Wittwer, Porträt (Portrait), 2019
    Porträt (Portrait), 2019
  • Uwe Wittwer, The Spoils of Ward Twelve, 2018
    The Spoils of Ward Twelve, 2018
  • Uwe Wittwer, Im Walde  (In the Woods), 2018
    Im Walde  (In the Woods), 2018
  • Uwe Wittwer, Im Walde (In the Woods), 2018
    Im Walde (In the Woods), 2018
  • Uwe Wittwer, Caravan, 2018
    Caravan, 2018
  • Uwe Wittwer, Lager (Camp), 2016
    Lager (Camp), 2016
  • Uwe Wittwer, Reiter Negativ (Horseman Negativ), 2014
    Reiter Negativ (Horseman Negativ), 2014
  • Uwe Wittwer, Boat (Boot), 2012
    Boat (Boot), 2012
Selected exhibitions
Press
Publications
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