Uwe Wittwer Born 1954 in Zurich, Switzerland

Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland

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 A comprehensive spectrum of topics and subjects emerge thematically in his works, interweaving cultural and historical references with notions of collective and personal memory.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.