Under the title "From Dusk Till Dawn" the Jamileh Weber gallery is delighted, to present an exhibition with new paintings by the young Swiss artists Silvia Gertsch and Xerxes Ach. From dusk till dawn describes the rather unusual working hours of Silvia Gertsch (born 1963 in Bern) and Xerxes Ach (born 1957 in Esslingen a.N., Germany). Since 10 years the artists live and work together in Zurich. The works painted at night-time, in the glooming of artificial neon-light couldn't hardly be more different: Silvia Gertschs paintings are figurative and they are executed in the technique of glass painting (in German literally "behind glass" painting or eglomisé painting - painted on the reverse side of glass), Xerxes Achs works are abstract and painted with egg tempera on cotton. Beyond the unconditional confession towards painting - from both artists executed in perfection in there respective field - the works complements one another and hold a strong dialogue. "Both artists understand color as energy sources and therefore as close relatives to light. The light rises in the recent works and becomes the main topic. In Xexes Achs it glooms and crosses the border of the squared paintings into the space and tempers it. In Silvia Gertschs paintings light is more like an actor within the motif. The figures become incorporeal and the light moves them from the ordinary context into the dream-like unreal. The figures appear like dancer without gravity." 1 Silvia Gertsch: "My subject is always light. To depict light with colors. After my series of opaque objects (1992-1994), the interiors (1995-1997) and the nightshots - images of night time and mists (1998-2002), I felt the desire of colorful, even exaggerated daylight. This new series is based on impressions that I collected in an intense three months work with my video camera at the river Aare, the lake of Zug ant finally in Italy, in Nervi at the Ligurian coast, where I found a beach that offered me an unique back light. These video-tapes represent for me the fundamentals for the "searched-found" pictures, as I call them. I have an idea and by accident I get the pictures that I select from hours and hours of video stills that I printed-out, always looking for the "right moment". It is for me like a déja-vu: I know it, I am familiar with it, it is exactly the way I want it. The figures brought it back to me." 2 Isn't it just this déja-vu the keeps the viewer fascinated in front of the new paintings? Aren't these the viewer's own remembrances and sensations that appear looking at these summery scenes? One can feel the exquisite coolness that the shadow of the tree is offering, the last sunbeams warming up the two figures sitting at the chilly lakeshore. One can hear the various noises: the ripple of the water, the screeching and laughing of the bathing children, one hears the silence, the day dreaming, the reading. "Silvia Gertsch is an artistic medium. She mediates between pictures that are within her, which she seems to know, and pictures of the outside world, which come about by chance. The constellation has to be right. The weather, coruscating backlight, evening twilight, and her inner disposition all play a role. It is not easy to find the right thing. But the idea of making do with inauspicious scenarios simply never occurs to her. She knows what she is looking for." 3 Once the motifs are found after patient looking through the video-tapes the artist transfers them in the technique of glass painting onto the picture support: "The video-stills (6.5 x 8 cm) are photocopied and enlarged to A4. Then they are slipped into a protective plastic cover, which is sealed at the edges with yellow adhesive tape. They already look like miniatures of the finished paintings. Added to which they will not be damaged when the time comes to use paint. Packed and ready they lie there like preserves. (…) Long before this she has ordered sheets of glass in the required size. The glass in question is a special, non-greened variety (crystal clear, 6 mm thick). She herself cleans the glass and polishes the edges. Then she transfers the motifs onto them with felt pens. Using a simple multiplication scheme, each detail of the original is enlarged to fit the dimensions of the new picture support. The preparatory drawings are on the front of the glass, providing the necessary guide for the paint which will be applied to the back." 4 The working with oilpaint allows Silvia Gertsch to develop the motifs in longer periods. "She paints on towards the color behind the glass, not in the traditional technique of eglomisé painting but in the old tradition of the "alla-prima-fresco" technique, color mixed in color, wet in wet." 5 Xerxes Ach: "If one jumps to the conclusion that Xerxes Ach is a monochrome painter, he misjudges the work. Rather the opposite is accurate: He is a polychrome painter, he orchestrates his paintings with the help of polyphone compositions." 6 "Colorscapes" was the title of an earlier series of paintings, executed 1996/97, where Xerxes Ach applied countless layers of gloss paint and pigments on various picture supports like wrapping paper or plane and crumpled aluminum. These early works represent the starting point of a long-standing, meticulous enquiry on color spaces or breathing color bodies. "Paintings" he calls them laconic. To stress the process of painting he now works traditionally on canvas. After experiments with acrylic based emulsion, in which he mixed his pigments, since two years, the artist is using egg tempera on cotton. Stronger as in his earlier works, the process of painting remains visible. One can experience the multiple layers. The way he treats the edges of the paintings becomes the main topic: "Unlike the earlier works, where the edges appeared as an outer line of the color field, now the margin is folded back into the color field, creating a new peculiar quality. The painting consists of a margin, uncovering the undercoat and an interior form. The color of this band behaves contrary to the interior form that spreads from the center to the inner margins of the band. A harmonic impression is almost impossible. For example there is one work with an inner square painted in purple-darkgreen-blue bordered by an orange margin. The result of the refraction of the complementary colors creates a constant shimmering. This effect even gets a boost as the colors in the inner field are shading. Metaphorical spoken it is like looking at a cold mountain lake, with its emerald-green lake shore merging into a washed blue and in the center a black-violet." 7 This metaphor used by the author is not surprising if one knows that Xerxes Ach generates his color range from geographical magazines and books. But the illustrated places - the mountain the desert or the seascape - doesn't matter. It is about the details, about color zones and color tones. He tries to transfer them, applying layer after layer on the canvas that is lying flat on a table, unless he finds the atmosphere he is looking for. The show will remain on view through Saturday, October 4, 2003 at the Jamileh Weber Gallery, Waldmannstrasse 6, CH-8001 Zurich. Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 4pm and by appointment. Under the title "From Dusk Till Dawn", a 200 page hardcover book will be published by the Atelier Verlag, Bern. With essays by Tobia Bezzola and Prof. Norberto Gramaccini (Silvia Gertsch) and Simon Baur and Gerhard Mack (Xerxes Ach). English translation by Fiona Elliott. A book presentation will be hold at the Jamileh Weber Gallery, Thursday, October 2, 2003, 6 - 8 PM For further information or photographs please contact the gallery, phone: +41-1-252 10 66, fax: +41-1-252 11 32 email: info@jamilehweber.com, www.jamilehweber.com 1 Angelika Affentranger-Kirchrath: Malerei ins Licht geholt - Silvia Gertsch und Xerxes Ach in Zürich, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10.04.2002, p. 44 - Zürcher Kultur 2 quotation Silvia Gertsch 3 Prof. Norberto Gramaccini, Reaching from front to back, the hand speaks to the mind, essay for the book "From Dusk Till Dawn", Atelier Verlag, Bern 2003 4 ibid 5 Konrad Tobler: Lichtbilder, catalogue essay Kunsthalle Burgdorf, 1998, p. 37 6 Angelika Affentranger-Kirchrath: Malerei ins Licht geholt - Silvia Gertsch und Xerxes Ach in Zürich, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10.04.2002, p. 44 - Zürcher Kultur 7 Simon Baur, essay for the book "From Dusk Till Dawn", Atelier Verlag, Bern 2003