PAINTING AND SCULPTURE: TWO PASSIONS ANIMATED BY THE SAME IMPULSE
René Mayer (1947) is Swiss by birth, cosmopolitan by
temperament, and an artist by vocation. Since the 1970s,
after attending the School of Arts and Crafts in Basel (now
the «Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel»), he has
dedicated himself to painting and sculpture.
His early paintings were figurative, but he soon veered
towards abstract art, creating over 500 paintings and
sculptures that address his social, environmental, and
cultural concerns. In his recent series «Imperceptible
shift», René Mayer highlights the almost imperceptible
mutations that insidiously undermine our lives – in the
intimacy of the couple as well as in the vastness of the
world. This series sets a new milestone in René Mayer’s
journey, but it does not mark the end of his artistic career.
His motto remains: «Passion never retires.»
THE «MAKING OF» OF THE SERIES «IMPERCEPTIBLE SHIFT»
Artist and craftsman
The technical substrate of a painting in the series
«Imperceptible Shift» (including the frame, the fabric, the
chips, the construction templates, the paint gutter, etc.) is
more than the prerequisite upon which the work is built:
it is a constitutive element. «At the bottom of my heart, I
am a craftsman,» affirms René Mayer. Working the wood,
stretching the canvas on the frame, coating the fabric,
Preparing the paint is a highly artisanal operation that precedes the artistic gesture and results in stimulating tactile and olfactory sensations – almost sensual, says the artist.
Through the four videos below, follow step by step the creation of a work from the «Imperceptible Shift» series.
Through the four videos below, follow step by step the creation of a work from the «Imperceptible Shift» series.
Making your
own canvas
René Mayer makes his own canvases in the format of 140
x 180 cm. These canvases, which must accommodate
several hundred tokens, must have maximum rigidity,
form stability, and resistance to folds. Out of necessity,
René Mayer has developed his own technique for
stretching the fabric on the frame and avoiding unsightly
folds at the four corners of the painting! Discover his
method in this video – and don’t hesitate to use it for your
own works…
Painting directly with pigments
René Mayer prefers acrylic paint, but he only moderately
appreciates the colors as they come out of the tubes or
pots. To achieve the desired brilliance and brightness, the
artist uses powdered pigments. He applies a first layer of
transparent medium on the canvas and then incorporates
the pigments in successive layers until the desired effect
is achieved.
Colouring the casino chips
A work from the «Imperceptible Shift» series includes up
to 600 casino chips – chips that symbolize for René Mayer
the irresponsibility of our civilization: «We play with the Earth as if it were a casino. But in this game, we are losers.» The concept involves gradually covering chips with a second color. This change evokes the slow
mutations that mark our lives and that of the world. To
color his chips rationally, René Mayer has developed a
simple but refined artisanal process.
Gluing chips casino chips
The gluing of hundreds of casino chips onto a painting,
once they have been positioned to the millimeter
according to a pre-established plan and with wooden
templates made by René Mayer, is a captivating moment.
It is only after all the chips have been glued and the
templates removed that the artist discovers his work! This video shows the original tools and ingenious method that are at the foundation of the «Imperceptible Shift» series.
A BOOK AS UNUSUAL AS ITS TITLE: «RENÉ MAYER..? RENÉ MAYER...!»
Art books are said to be instructive and pedantic.
Creating an art book that is informative but not boring is
therefore a challenge – one that «René Mayer…? René
Mayer..!» meets with a smile: neither a biography nor a
catalogue, this book invites you to wander through fifty
years of artistic research and discover «Imperceptible
Shift», René Mayer’s latest theme (but not the epilogue of
his career!). Flip through the book as you please and enter the creative intimacy of the artist. Discover, through
brief texts, his sources of inspiration, enjoy his anecdotes,
savor his recipes (cooking is also an art!), delight in his
short aphorisms, and discover a vibrant anthology of
paintings and sculptures.
Format 30 x 30 cm, couverture rigide, 96 pages. Available in
German, English, Italian and Portuguese on this site’s shop.
Price: 45 CHF/Euro, including VAT. Shipping costs extra.