Simon Berger Swiss, b. 1976

Born on April 9, 1976, in Switzerland.
Lives and works now in his own studio in Niederönz.

Artistic vision, technical skill and continuous innovation characterize Simon Berger’s creative practice. Pioneering an improbable method of working glass in a two-dimensional, figurative way, the Swiss artist literally breaks the laws of physics with a revolutionary approach to his medium of choice, thereby moving beyond the century-old convention of building and modelling vitreous matter. Contrary to this long-standing tradition, his is a form of anti-creation as the destructive gesture of mere blows of a hammer on a glass pane ultimately ‘draws’ images of great visual intrigue that emerge from the tangle of powerfully orchestrated cracks. By virtue of his unique sculptural language Simon Berger explores the depths of the material, striking the glass to liberate photorealistic ‘paintings’ from the presumed flatness of the surface. The vitreous canvas in this regard becomes both the supportive structure of his artwork, as well as the visualization of his artistic handwriting, while its transparency allows the artist to play with notions of an infinite beyond that assumes concrete form in the opacity of the breaks.

The closer and briefer the blows, the stronger the contrasts and the shades. In his hands, the hammer is no longer a tool of destruction, but rather an amplifier of effects. His lacerated ‘paintings’, incised in glass, transport the gaze into the tangles of cracks and creases which he refers to as ‘morphogenesis’.

Simon Berger began his artistic explorations by creating portraits with spray cans before turning to other media. A carpenter by training, his first sculptural works accordingly resulted from a natural attraction to wood. Drawn to different materials with their respective affordances and fostering a fascination with discarded items, the artist spent plenty of time experimenting with used vehicle bodies to create assemblages. It was while pondering what to do with a car windshield that his idea for working with glass was born. Following first attempts, he gradually perfected his unique technique of ‘incising’ images with a hammer, thereby turning the weakness of the material - its fragility and risk of breaking - into its greatest strength.

“Human faces have always fascinated me” Simon Berger explains his primary choice of subject. “On safety glass, they come into their own and magically attract the viewer. It is a process of discovery from abstract fogging to figurative perception.”

Of exceptional photorealistic allure, these portraits enthrall for their expressiveness, as if animated from within and resonating with life. With his work on windowpanes, the artist pushes creative boundaries and probes the expressive capabilities of inert materials destined for factories. His vitreous paintings challenge habits of seeing as the glass canvases become sites where visual perception is held in constant suspense by the deconstructing and reconstructing image. Glass, the most capricious of all media for artistic expression, acts as a place where the force of a unique sculptural gesture translates into depictions of mesmerizing appeal. From the controlled shattering of glass and its resulting fractures, art recalls its power of suscitating wonder and awe since through destruction, Simon Berger allows beauty to emerge.

Sandrine Welte