PIA FRIES

The Swiss artist completed her painting studies in 1986 as a master student of Gerhard Richter. Nationally and internationally, her work has already been shown in many places.
The paintings of Pia Fries are characterized by direct use of color, the joy of experimentation and the search for new, resistant formulations. Color is an essential element of her painting. It can represent dense mass, liquid trace or even a play of textures, factures and repetitive forms.
The antithesis of painting is graphic art. The artist applies fragments of historical prints to her image carriers using silkscreen printing and reacts to the representational play of lines with color and painting tools. Her paintings thus oscillate in a fascinating way between representationalism and abstraction, between history and the present.

Depending on the group of works, Fries uses illustrations of self-made color sculptures or sheets by artists as diverse as Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), or Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) as the starting point for her painting.
Text excerpt Gunda Luken, curator anl. solo exhibition at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf 2019

Artist CV