Yves Zurstrassen

The Belgian artist Yves Zurstrassen employs a unique creative process and a very particular technique that reflects a desire to transcend temporality in his work.

Biography of Yves Zurstrassen

Yves Zurstrassen, born in Liège in 1956, experienced his childhood in the Vesdre valley before relocating to Brussels with his family at 10. His adolescence unfolded amidst the turbulence of the hippie movement and truancy, yet one certainty persisted: his world revolved around painting. At 18, he started painting, alternating between studio work and extended in France, at the Carthusian monastery of La Verne, and in Andalusia, where he painted outdoors. These experiences profoundly influenced his artistic development.

A self-taught painter with a background in graphic arts, Zurstrassen honed his craft in the 80s within artists' studios and retrospectives of abstract expressionist masters such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, and Mark Tobey. Rejecting the use of concrete images, Zurstrassen remains focused on painting as a manifestation within the art's history. He began scrutinizing the works of his artistic predecessors and peers. His exploration of the painting process involved an examination of Tachism or Abstract Expressionism.

In the late 90s, Zurstrassen established his workspace in a disused industrial building, adapting it to suit his needs. His approach evolved in the 2000s, drawing inspiration from the Dada movement and Kurt Schwitters. 

By 2002, he began gradually incorporating pure color into his work, integrating collaged elements by cutting up his paintings and incorporating sections into new compositions. His fascination with spatial depth and movement led to adopting the 'décollage' technique, involving the application of cut-out elements treated as stencils. After painting over the cut-out shapes, they are carefully removed, creating multiple textured layers that generate an optical pulsation across the canvas.

Since 1993, various galleries have showcased his art at international art fairs like ART Basel, ART Brussels, ARCO Madrid, and FIAC Paris. However, his inaugural North American exhibition occurred in Montreal at Galerie Dominion. In addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions over the years, Zurstrassen participated in a public exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain Liège. He has been a significant presence in the international market and is represented by galleries in Paris and Madrid, among others.

Currently, Yves Zurstrassen resides and works in Brussels. 

Yves Zurstrassen's Art Style

Yves Zurstrassen's work is in constant motion, transitioning between lyrical abstraction and abstract expressionism and vice versa. His method involves playing with the principles of collage and the application of various forms of paper onto successive layers of color. As a result, layers of pigments add up and subtract, revealing fragments of the canvas's skin or the archeology of its construction.

Steering clear of formalism, the artist engages in a wild sequence of gestures, alternating between applications and withdrawals. Zurstrassen juxtaposes his spontaneous, at times forceful, body movements with the delicacy of floral, stellar, and wave-like motifs. He weaves intricate patterns and networks, bringing forth a sense of rhythm. The gesture exudes lyricism, allowing musicality to prevail in his work.