Silvia Gertsch, Xerxes Ach: Embracing Sensation

Description

Colour and light as sensory stimulus and the phenomenon of light encountering surfaces are core elements of the work of artists Silvia Gertsch, born in Switzerland in 1963, and the German Xerxes Ach, born in 1957. Gertsch works on reverse-glass, using snapshots of young people in summer, sunbathing, strolling down the street, or children absorbed in play. Ach has turned to micro-phenomena in which light encounters various materials, is refracted in various ways, and generates abstract visual compositions. In spite of their different stylistic languages - realism on the one side, abstract colour field painting on the other - occupying antagonistic positions in contemporary painting, the two artists take a similar approach, starting from photos they take themselves and digitally edit, as well as found ones recording fleeting visual stimuli. Coinciding with a dual exhibition of Silvia Gertsch and Xerxes Ach at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, this new book features their work from two decades. Richly illustrated, it puts their differing pictorial languages in a dance-like dialogue, revealing each artist's relation to current artistic discourses.

Kathleen Buhler, born 1968, is curator of contemporary art at Museum of Fine Arts Bern.