Andy Denzler

„I speed up and slow down the colors“, Andy Denzler

Andy Denzler is one of the most respected young artists in the German-speaking world and beyond. His works are represented in American, Asian and European museums and collections. The exploration of distortion and movement in the image is his own developed visual language with which he approximates to the human, almost approximatively. His paintings are like dissolving caricatures of old VHS tapes. Its contents are the interiors created by humans as well as the human figure itself, which stands out as an individual and yet remains anonymous.

Denzler's iconography is traditional. His motifs are similar to those of the Old Masters of the Baroque. His isolated figures are reminiscent of Jan Vermeer van Delft's (1632-1675) intimate portrayals of people, but the artist, born in Zurich in 1965, translates them into the present and works with his own technique: he designs the scenery carefully, structures it into photographs and photographs collages. In alla-prima manner, he develops his motif, applies oil or acrylic colors to the canvas in many layers and processes the still wet image with a spatula or squeegee. The result is paintings of coagulated time between abstraction and figuration.

In Black Hands and Black Hands in Black (2016) he reduces the room to a dark and bright area. At the center is a young man, introverted, his body almost seems to dissolve, but his head is precisely recognizable. His facial expressions show that he is in an intermediate state, like an actor when the curtain falls. In Urban Figures (2007), Andy Denzler devotes anonymous passers-by, which he captures in almost documentary, clotted black and white portraits. Initiated by this series of works, he has also been developing bronze sculptures since 2008. In American Painting (2005), his motifs are from popular American image and media culture: Statue of Liberty, American Stars and Stripes flag, public figures such as Michael Moore or George W. Bush. From 1999 to 2005 Andy Denzler worked exclusively abstract. In White Paintings (2002) he experiments with white color fields, the bright nothingness as the sum of all colors, and their shimmering, furrowed horizontal effect in the color space.

His works are in museums and collections such as the Hoffmann-La Roche Collection, Basel; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong; White Cube Collection, London; The UBS Art Collection, New York; Museum Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall; Museum Ludwig, Koblenz; White House, Washington D.C.; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., Credit Suisse, Zurich and the Zurich Cantonal Bank.

Denzler’s artworks belong to museums and prestigious collections such as the collection Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel; Burger Collection, Hongkong; White Cube Collection, London; The UBS Art Collection, New York; Museum Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall; Museum Ludwig, Koblenz; White House, Washington D.C.; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., Credit Suisse, Zurich and Kantonalbank of Zurich.