Pius Portmann
* born 1974 in Zug, Switzerland
* today lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland, and New York, USA
* drawing, painting, graffiti
Swiss artist Pius Portmann likes the contradictory: he is, for one, interested in the swift medium of graffiti in public space and, at the same time, in the time-consuming and detailed mediums of painting and drawing. On the one hand, he is fascinated by the tempo of the street and an awareness that his work in public space is constantly subjected to change, including accelerated disappearance. On the other hand, he is equally excited about working with intense discipline and precision on a painting that is being created specifically for conservation in a museum. Whether in the public sphere or in interior space within a gallery, whether graffiti or drawing, the central motifs in Pius Portmann’s works are figures that sometimes seem so hyperrealistic or reduced to a single line that they may well really only be describable as “beings.” An interplay of forms, figures, and fine lines produces surreal visual constructs whose individual motifs overlap, flowing into one another, while the foreground and background coalesce and appear to be switching roles. In this way, individual drawings, images, and motifs work together to create a sweeping comprehensive image that draws the viewer into its complex black-and-white world.
