Contest 4 - Winner's Interview - Patrick Egger

Please tell us about your journey as an artist.

Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1957, I spent my childhood in the Swiss Jura, in the heart of the mountains and nature. Very sensitive to the beauty of my environment, sublimated by the rhythm of the seasons, I travel and contemplate the ridges and valleys of my native Jura, whether the weather is mild and sunny or conducive to snowstorms. A forestry engineer by training, I finally moved towards a career as a teacher of physical sciences. Always enchanted by a mountain environment that I have never stopped contemplating, painting takes its place quite naturally in my life at the dawn of my sixties. I have just left the Jura to settle in the Mont-Blanc massif above the Marécottes in Valais.

Having started my artistic experience with charcoal and pastel, I turned in 2018 to acrylic painting which allows me to create an atmospheric rendering with great flexibility of execution. So I paint landscapes in a figurative style, sometimes on the edge of hyperrealism. Through my paintings I am in constant search of sensations linked to the beauty of the places I represent. My art is both faithful to the visible and in harmony with an emotional experience that I seek to magnify and share. Even if my work is a realistic representation of the subject, it is more of a composition through the choice of subject, framing and lighting.

What is your medium and why did you choose it?

The acrylic medium corresponds well to a very intuitive way of working. The process is somewhat empirical: the result of a brushstroke is never definitive and many "corrections" are made to the nuances, colors and light. The painting thus takes shape gradually. When the work finally brings me a deep emotion, that is when I put down the brush.

What was the inspiration behind this work?

Regarding the work "Arrière automne", the aim is to share a certain melancholy or reverie induced by this scene. I wanted to render the atmosphere so particular to autumn, with these warm and bright hues. A feeling of humidity also emerges from the foggy atmosphere specific to the morning hours of this season.