A Vocation Rooted in Life, Not in Doctrines
René Mayer did not become an artist through family tradition. He became one out of inner necessity, out of vital coherence — as an instinctive response to a deep internal call. Nothing in his immediate environment pointed him toward an artistic career. Coming from a cultivated bourgeois background but one not particularly inclined toward creative pursuits, he found neither role models nor encouragement within his family circle. It was only much later that his stepfather, self-taught, would try his hand at painting and sculpture — without ever making it a central activity. The impulse behind René Mayer’s path comes from elsewhere. It is rooted in an early tension between the need for expression and resistance to conformity — a fierce desire to inhabit the world on his own terms, refusing the beaten paths.
Born in Basel in 1947, René Mayer grew up in a singular, border city, crisscrossed by languages, influences, and ways of thinking. The Rhine — both a symbolic and fluid artery — links Basel to France and Germany, positioning the city as a major cultural crossroads. It was in this European microcosm, infused with humanist tolerance and a discreet yet resilient cosmopolitanism, that René Mayer shaped his perspective. In Basel cafés, one hears Basel dialect, High German, French, and English; conversations range from Erasmus to Jean Tinguely or Pipilotti Rist. The city’s museums are filled with symbolist masterpieces, contemporary experiments, and private collections of exceptional depth. Far from being a passive observer, René Mayer absorbed this vibrant cultural fabric. Art quickly became for him a full-fledged way of being — a way of seeing, feeling, and understanding the world. His entire career, evolving between painting and sculpture, is encapsulated in this idea.
Drawn early on to form, volume, and color, he first turned to applied arts. At the Schule für Gestaltung Basel — a direct heir to the spirit of the Bauhaus — he received a training that was both rigorous and invigorating. There, art was taught as beginning with respect for the material, with mastery of gesture, and with a deep understanding of process. René Mayer learned clarity of line, precision of drawing, and the expressive power of a single well-placed stroke. He encountered the thinking of Johannes Itten and Josef Albers — not as doctrines to be followed blindly, but as catalysts for experimentation. The teaching was not dogmatic but open: every student was encouraged to seek their own coherence, to make the hand an instrument of thought.
It was later, under the guidance of Austrian sculptor Alfred Gruber — a close associate of Hans Arp — that René Mayer discovered the thrill of risk, of improvisation, of form in motion. In Gruber’s former quarry-turned-studio, transformed into a place of artistic experimentation, he learned to listen to the material as much as to shape it. Gesture became inquiry; form became intuition. This marked a turning point in his artistic life. There emerged what would become his signature: a way of thinking about form rooted in making, in the hand, in the weight of things. A sense of volume that does not oppose intuition, but draws nourishment from it. For René Mayer, form is never decorative. It is a language. It is a way of breathing, of existing.
A Hard-Won Freedom, a Patient Practice
Long before devoting himself fully to his artistic career, René Mayer took an unconventional path for a painter and sculptor: in the 1970s, he founded a wholesale business specializing in tableware. At a time when lifestyle, style, and functionality were beginning to merge with everyday aesthetic concerns, René Mayer created and ran a company that experienced rapid and lasting growth. He applied the same principles he had learned in art school: clarity of form, simplicity of line, precision of gesture, attention to material. His rigor, his sense of visual balance, and his ability to anticipate the expectations of a public attuned to discreet elegance allowed him to find swift commercial success and become one of the leaders in his market segment. But beyond economic achievement, this venture confirmed for him a central conviction: it is possible to reconcile artisanal precision and efficiency, beauty and utility, creative freedom and disciplined craftsmanship.
This experience reinforced one of his key principles in life: balance is not born of conflict between opposites, but of their encounter. René Mayer does not oppose the logic of the market to that of art; he does not view business as a world foreign to creation. For him, commercial discipline is not a constraint but a framework within which genuine attention to detail can emerge. That care for detail would become one of the hallmarks of his later work. In the hand-painted surface of a casino chip, in the exact cut of a granite base, in the silent tension of a sculpted gaze — one feels the imprint of this culture of well-made work, deeply rooted in his professional background. It is also this entrepreneurial success that gave him the freedom to break away from material constraints and choose a different rhythm of life. While many artists of his generation had to multiply compromises without ever gaining the recognition they sought, René Mayer was able to focus on his practice without concessions, outside the system — at his own pace.
For nearly fifty years, he painted and sculpted without ever seeking to exhibit. This withdrawal from the art world was neither a refusal nor a pose — it was a form of loyalty to himself. He felt no need to be seen, no hunger for recognition. He felt no urgency to conform to expectations, to claim a position, or to build a career. He preferred to carve his path in the solitude of the studio. There, in the shifting light of the Piedmont hills, between mist and vineyard, he shaped his works one by one, patiently. His studio in Bubbio became his center of gravity: a place of concentration, of simplicity, of attentive silence. Each painting, each sculpture, was born of an intimate dialogue with the material. Acrylic, powdered pigment, clay, marble, wood, linen — nothing was left to chance, everything was considered, but without dogma.
For René Mayer, art is not an accumulation of outcomes, but a series of living processes. Form does not reveal itself suddenly: it must be approached layer by layer, adjustment after adjustment. The gesture is slow, precise, taut. Each surface is reworked until a point of balance is reached. Time is part of the work. Nothing is immediate. What matters is not to finish a piece, but to inhabit it fully. This daily discipline, this fidelity to the act of making, gives his work a rare density. His pieces do not seek to seduce; they offer themselves in silence, with a quiet intensity. They carry the trace of that patience, of that freedom — a freedom not won against the world, but at a distance from its noise.
Pictorial Series Structured Around Fundamental Questions
René Mayer’s painting is resolutely abstract, yet it is far from being a formal exercise detached from reality. It carries a sharp perspective on the world — on the transformations that shape it, and on the silent tensions that define our time. In contrast to spectacular effects and loud declarations, René Mayer patiently develops series over the span of several years. Each series unfolds a reflection — not through words, but through chromatic tensions, precise gestures, and materials treated as language. He does not seek to illustrate an idea; he lets it emerge slowly from the canvas itself, through a process of layered elaboration. The works he creates do not offer themselves at first glance: they demand attention, time, and inward openness.
The series “Imperceptible Shift” is perhaps the most emblematic example. Each canvas is constructed layer by layer in a constant back-and-forth between control and release, and incorporates hundreds of casino chips — all painted individually, one by one — then embedded into the pictorial surface. These objects, mass-produced, interchangeable, and cold, become in René Mayer’s hands the symbol of an unconscious, collective gamble with ecological balance. The chip, by nature, refers to a loss of control, to risk, to blindness. By integrating it into his abstract compositions, René Mayer is not denouncing anything — he is silently shaping our relationship to danger. The very beauty of these paintings, their chromatic balance, their tactile sensuality, stands in stark contrast to the weight of the subject. This tension between aesthetics and ethics lies at the heart of his work. Nothing is frontal — everything plays out in subtle transitions, in half-tones, like the slow transformations we fail to notice until they have already reshaped the world.
In “Moving Earth”, it is the metaphor of tectonic force that prevails. The surfaces are wrinkled, striated, as if lifted from within by invisible pressures. One thinks of tectonic plates, earthquakes, upheavals. But it is also about us: about our strained societies, our collective vulnerabilities, about those unseen tremors that reshape our lives. The material here is not merely shaped — it is inhabited. René Mayer gives it an active, almost living role. The pigments, powders, and coatings form a fragile, sometimes tense skin — one that lets the world’s instability rise to the surface.
With “Finiteness”, René Mayer shifts registers but not intention. Here, he explores beauty as a mask. His surfaces shine and catch the eye — but what they conceal is erosion, bodily fragility, the passage of time. Visual seduction becomes a temporary illusion. Beneath the gloss, something begins to crumble. One senses a quiet critique of artificial standards, of frozen ideals, of the erasure of aging in contemporary society. The paintings in this series speak of appearance and surface — but also of what those surfaces attempt to hide, and what inevitably returns.
The series “Boxes” explores the notion of framing. Each painting engages a structure that can be read as either protective or confining. Is it a secure space, a place of shelter? Or rather a mental enclosure, a form of withdrawal, of isolation? René Mayer plays here with the edges — between inside and outside, between restriction and release. He questions what we call freedom, and the conditions that make it possible.
With “Eyes”, initiated in the 1990s, René Mayer places the gaze at the center. Not the theoretical gaze, but the lived one — the one we cast on others, and the one we receive. These paintings stage mute presences, layered gazes — elusive, confronted, enigmatic. The whole issue of perception comes into play: what does it mean to see? To be seen? How does this face-to-face encounter shape our relationship to the world — and to ourselves? One senses an echo of a reflection on painting itself, as a medium of the gaze.
Finally, the “Experiments” series gathers numerous small square formats, along with some large-scale works, in which René Mayer freely explores color combinations, texture contrasts, and rhythm variations. These often discreet works act as silent laboratories. They are not meant to demonstrate, but to test, to shift, to modulate. One reads in them the trace of a process in constant motion — a plastic inquiry that never settles.
Across all these series, what matters is neither the concept nor the message, but the presence. René Mayer does not paint to illustrate an idea — he paints to give form to a perception, a tension, a disturbance. His abstraction is an invitation to slow down, to look differently, to enter a space where one does not immediately know what to think. A space of active doubt, of fertile silence — where thought rises from the surface itself.
Welcoming Sculptures, Organic or Geometric
In René Mayer’s body of work, sculpture holds a central place — complementary to painting, yet irreducible to it. It is neither a detour nor a three-dimensional extension of his canvases: it is an autonomous field of exploration, a physical extension of his formal research. Two major sculptural series embody this pursuit: “Viva Viva” and “Marble & Granite”. Both arise from the same impulse: to make form into language, volume into a space for relation, and material into a site of sensory inquiry.
The “Viva Viva” series, crafted in hand-painted terracotta, is a deliberately joyful celebration of life. Here we find chromatic exuberance, sensuality of form, and an immediate sense of connection. The sculptures are shaped by hand in long, immersive sessions, where the work process becomes a kind of chromatic trance. The series draws inspiration from both Mexican folk art — with its archaic statuettes, naive saints, and bold colors — and from the whimsical figures of the Basel Carnival. “Viva Viva” offers a gallery of characters who are both joyful and ambiguous, burlesque and profound. They do not look at us — or rather, they look without eyes. Their eye sockets are hollowed out, their features stylized, echoing the Fasnacht (carnival) masks. The figures lean toward each other, brush against one another, reach out. They are not locked in solemnity, but oriented toward others, toward elsewhere. They seem to chirp, to whisper, to exchange in silence. Their vibrant colors — intense reds, blues, greens — are there to exalt vitality. Everything here speaks of energy, rhythm, and interdependence.
In counterpoint, the “Marble & Granite” series explores a radically different aesthetic — more pared down, more silent, but just as deeply inhabited. The figures it gathers are hieratic, anchored in a slow, mineral, archetypal temporality. In this series, René Mayer draws from a formal vocabulary rooted in so-called ‘primitive’ arts — African sculptures, Polynesian idols, archaic busts from ancient Greece — but without ever quoting or imitating. What interests him is inner force, the reduction to essentials, the distillation of human presence into sober, massive, dense forms. Some sculptures feature a single head with a lone, oversized cyclopean eye; others show two profiles turned toward — or away from — each other, like couples locked in tension. Some are cleaved, hollowed out, mute. Some female busts bear a single eye in place of a head — an echo of Eyes, the painting series where gaze becomes a metaphor for selfhood.
The creative process follows a rigorous method: René Mayer first models each sculpture in clay, at reduced scale. It is at this stage that the essentials are determined: rhythm, mass, the breathing of the form. Clay allows for intuition, for trial and revision. Once the form is fixed, it is handed over to stone-carving ateliers in India, specializing in marble and granite. These highly skilled artisans transpose the model — often under the direct supervision of the artist. This is not a mere technical transfer: it is a transmission of intention. Every vein of stone, every curve, every polished or raw surface is treated as an expressive articulation. The stone — noble and heavy — thus becomes a receptacle for contained emotion, for achieved equilibrium.
The themes explored revolve around the couple, attraction, otherness. But René Mayer does not represent — he suggests. Eroticism emerges in a subtle register, without nudity; the tension between masculine and feminine is suggested in the lines, in contrasts of mass, in confrontation or retreat. Often, the body seems to be absent — what remains are the essentials: the head, the legs, sometimes a stylized torso. This deliberate reduction speaks to universality: the figures become signs, almost ideograms. Far from anecdote, they invite meditation on the human condition, on the gaze, on interaction.
Installed in René Mayer’s garden in Piedmont (Italy), these sculptures converse with light, wind, and seasons. Sun warms them, rain caresses them, snow covers them. The patina of time makes them living works — slowly altered by their environment. They are not made for museums: they are meant as convivial presences, akin to standing stones, ritual markers, silent figures that keep watch. Once again, what matters for René Mayer is the link between form and place, hand and material, thought and gesture. He does not sculpt objects — he gives presence a body.
Exhibitions: A Late Recognition with Lasting Resonance
Throughout his artistic career — over fifty years — René Mayer painted and sculpted in complete discretion. He never sought to exhibit his works or to join any institutional art circuit. This retreat was not a strategy, but an existential stance: what interested him was the act of creation itself, not its diffusion. And yet, in 2021, everything shifted. His work, until then kept in the shadows, began to circulate. Public recognition, though late, began almost by accident — but quickly gained unexpected resonance.
It all began in Bergolo, a tiny village in the Piedmont hills. Struck by the power of René Mayer’s works, a curator who discovered them almost by chance organized a first exhibition in the deconsecrated chapel of San Sebastiano. Initially planned as a short event, the show was extended for several weeks. The modest venue became the setting for a decisive encounter between René Mayer’s work and a curious, open, and unprejudiced audience. That first exhibition acted as a revelation: what René Mayer had built in solitude resonated immediately — and deeply. Nothing was designed to seduce, and yet the impact was undeniable. A dialogue began.
Following that initial experience, René Mayer decided to create a permanent space — not to promote himself, but to give visibility to overlooked artistic voices from the Piedmont region. In 2023, he founded the SAB – Spazio Arte Bubbio, in a disused wine warehouse in the village where he lives and works. The venue quickly became a convergence point for emerging artists and curious visitors. René Mayer exhibits his own work there in cycles, alternating with other artists he supports or discovers. The SAB is not a showcase — it is a space for exchange and resonance, much like its founder’s approach: demanding, rigorous, but deeply oriented toward others.
The year 2024 marked a turning point with the exhibition “Imperceptible Shift”, a selection of 30 recent abstract works curated by the late Professor Luca Beatrice, former president of the Quadriennale di Roma. Held at the SAB itself, the exhibition made headlines in the cultural press of Piedmont. Luca Beatrice immediately situated René Mayer’s work within an international reflection on the current directions of abstraction. He highlighted the specificity of René Mayer’s approach: dense, deeply committed painting that is never preachy, where environmental, perceptual, and cultural mutations are embedded in the material itself. Beatrice’s curatorship resonated in the art world, and the show became a milestone in the artist’s journey.
This was followed by several exhibitions that furthered his growing recognition. In Vevey, at the end of 2024, René Mayer took part in the group exhibition ‘Artists United for Water’, organized by the gallery Fresa y Chocolate in collaboration with the NGO What Water. There, he presented a selection of works from “Imperceptible Shift”, using casino chips as a symbol of the deadly game our civilization plays with the environment. The symbolic dimension of his work resonated especially strongly in this context.
In 2025, René Mayer’s participation in “Kesişmeler | Intersections”, curated by Fırat Arapoğlu and hosted by Vision Art Platform in Istanbul, marked his first foray beyond Switzerland and Italy. His works were placed on the gallery’s central wall — a strong curatorial choice. GQ Turkey covered the event, describing the Swiss artist as ‘discreet yet striking’, and calling his painted chips ‘objects of meditation’. This first appearance on the Turkish art scene opened doors to future collaborations.
That same year, in Baar (Switzerland), René Mayer held a solo exhibition titled “Happy Anxiety” at AtelierRoshi. For the first time, he brought together two of his most contrasting series: the “Viva Viva” figurines and the “Imperceptible Shift” paintings. The unexpected juxtaposition of “Viva Viva”’s vibrant playfulness with the quiet critique of “Imperceptible Shift” revealed a previously overlooked dimension of his work: its capacity to hold powerful emotional tensions — without setting them in opposition. The show was praised for its clarity and coherence.
Finally, in June 2025, Galerie Hergiswil hosted René Mayer’s first major retrospective: “René Mayer. Paintings and Sculptures”. The exhibition brought together 17 paintings and 27 sculptures from all of his major series. The curatorial design highlighted the internal connections across his work: the gaze in Eyes echoed in the sculpted busts of “Marble & Granite”; the textured surfaces of “Moving Earth” conversed with the playful figures of “Viva Viva”. The public discovered the full scope of a body of work that had grown in silence, with formal coherence and steady commitment. For many, it was a revelation. For René Mayer, it was simply the continuation of a gesture he never interrupted.
A Practice That Connects Craftsmanship, Perception, and Ethics
René Mayer makes no claims. He does not seek to provoke, to align with trends, or to theorize his gesture. His work is neither a manifesto nor a reaction. It is the natural consequence of an exacting relationship with matter, with the world, and with himself. In an art world saturated with commentary, he chooses silence. In a culture driven by speed, he imposes slowness. In a system built on visibility, he favors withdrawal. This is not a pose, but a necessity. He follows no school, no movement, no expectation — only the form and what it tells him. What he constructs, layer by layer, day after day, is the result of unwavering attention to micro-variations, subtle adjustments, the presence of the body at work.
He explicitly describes himself as a craftsman. This term, for him, is neither an act of modesty nor a rejection of artistic aura — it is a fundamental affirmation. To be a craftsman is to be rooted in making, in the tangible, in attention to detail. It is the pursuit of the precise adjustment, the coherence between gesture and intent. For René Mayer, to create is to transform: to transform matter, to transform perception, to sometimes transform the viewer’s gaze. Above all, it is a way of entering into relation. The artwork is not a sealed object — it is a space of connection. It holds a tension between the visible and the invisible, between what is shown and what escapes, between the hand that shapes and the eye that receives. It does not seek to persuade, but to allow a state of attention, of heightened perception, to emerge.
In his paintings and sculptures, silence becomes active. These works do not merely exist — they call out. They invite us to pause the flow, to slow down, to truly look. They do not deliver messages, proclaim anything, or demonstrate. They stand — motionless, vibrating — insistent. They look at us. They propose a different temporality: one of withdrawal, density, and sensitivity. They do not seek to occupy space, but to inhabit it. They remind us that the essential is not always visible, that what transforms is not always spectacular, and that what touches us most deeply often speaks the most softly.
This, perhaps, is where the power of René Mayer’s work lies: in its ability to disarm without injury, to awaken without imposition. He does not present himself as an engaged artist in the militant sense, yet his work is profoundly ethical. Through matter, he questions our way of inhabiting the world. Through form, he explores how we see, feel, and respond. He does not give us answers — but creates the conditions for an inner shift. He asks us to be present, attentive — to the thickness of a pigment, the tension in a volume, the balance of an emptiness.
Thus unfolds the singular path of René Mayer. A path shaped by quiet obstinacy, by loyalty to an inner compass, by a refusal of shortcuts. A career between painting and sculpture, between chosen solitude and openness to what circulates. A body of work built in silence, yet oriented toward the world. A discreet practice — yet deeply active. A patient, tireless search for the right form, the sincere connection, the kind of beauty that does not impose itself — but transforms.
