In his studio in Villars sur Glâne, overlooking the river Sarine, and located in the heart of a wild nature, Ivo Vonlanthen has a breathtaking view. His inspiration comes from this natural environment. He is walking across day after day, privileging loneliness. As soon as he finds a satisfying spot, he takes a firm stand and starts to outline a few sketches. Tirelessly he observes, feels, catches the slightest quivering. Taking possession of all these elements, the artist, without cease, translates them into different ways. The objects undergoing the changing of the light are permanently in a state of metamorphosis : a tree, a bough, a flower, a stone, a landscape, offer to the eye as many aspects.
This is the complexity of the artist’s approach, trying to reveal the ephemeral of things, beaten by the winds, the rain, the flying time…

For over thirty years the artist observes, draws, paints with Chinese ink, watercolours on papers, oil on canvas, superposing colour fields, carefully studied. He is using tints of earth, sometimes pinks, violets and oranges as complementary tones. The spectator slides easily from one painting to the other, from one universe to the other, from one instant to the next one, trying to understand the subtleties the artist transmits to his large size works. Through a single look at the painting, one believes to see everything; in reality he probably hasn’t seen anything.
It is indeed necessary to look closer to the paintings in order to catch the richness of the work and the multiple combinations of colours and touches which seem to diffuse a sensation of fragrances, scents of plants freshly plucked, of buds suddenly burst, of bushes of sweet-smelling heather or landscapes humid by the mist. Everything the artist is catching during his wanderings is present with authenticity in his works.

In the drawings, it is the fragility, the delicacy and a great know-how that Ivo Vonlanthen privileges, in order to transmit only the essential of the true to life, the vibration that still echoes on the sheet of paper.

Ivo Vonlanthen lives and works in Fribourg. Since 1986 he exhibits in the French part of Switzerland. In 1989, he is awarded a scholarship by the City and State of Fribourg for a stay in the City of Arts in Paris. In 2000, exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Fribourg. Realisation of numerous large projects for public spots : local place, public schools (Bulle, Fribourg) and stained glass windows for two churches.


Dr.Danielle Junod-Sugnaux

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	Ivo Vonlanthen