A look at the art of Bernd Alder

I was born in Switzerland near Zurich in 1971 and studied at the Écoles des Beaux Arts in Paris and Montpellier. I live and work in Zurich, southern France and Barcelona.

Bernd Alder is a Swiss artist, and French expressionist, who has tried to find throughout his long and successful career the way to transport Mediterranean light to his canvases. For this, he has followed the example of French impressionist artists settling for many years on the French Riviera (Montpellier). He fell in love with the same Provence light that seduced Matisse, Picasso, and Léger, and the great history of museums has been honoring all of them: Picasso (Antibes - Vallauris), Matisse and Chagall (Niça), Leger (Biot). Only Ceret, however, - with the Museum of Modern Art, already in French Catalonia - offers us a global discourse linked to the emergence of the Avant-garde in France, given the fact that several waves of artists resided and there even lived there for many years. A look at the art of Bernd Alder

As the sunrays dance so playfully through the colorful foliage, nestle against the walls and illuminate the streets. I have never noticed this so intensively as in the pictures by Bernd Alder. His paintings flood the room with warmth beyond the picture frame.

He is an artist who takes us to distant cities and makes our own city shine in a new light. One would like to step on his feet in his pictures, feel the sun and hear the wind, play with the branches of the trees and let the boats dance on the water.

Through the warm, bright colors that he uses for his images, Bernd Alder creates deep pictorial spaces through which he shows us his view of things and at once allows deep insights into hidden worlds. His color choice is intuitive "I feel the colors of the aura surrounding the people and their environment".

Shaped by the times

Everything tells a story through its scars, its splendor and its traces. As part of his latest project, Bernd Alder lets a variety of models sit in his studio on his red Chesterfield couch and interact with the furniture. The couch creates atmosphere, inspires him, as the classic buttoned Chesterfield folds have a muscular structure and thus have something human.

Before Bernd Alder paints a picture, he lets the people and the space work on him. "I trust in the inspiration that I give space. I look at the environment and listen to my inner voice. There has to be substance, the content should be shaped, not vice versa. "

There must be a relationship between his inner and outer worlds. For the artist something unique has to be in the air, so that he needs to capture a snapshot in a picturesque way. His projects are about catching the moment, capturing the person and the dialogue between her and her surroundings. Intuition is his constant companion at work. The value of an image often results for him only from later viewing.