Heidi Künzler
The work of Heidi Künzler (born 1943 in Bern, Switzerland, died 2019 in Kirchlindach, Switzerland) belongs to the genre of Constructivist and Concrete Art and is defined by a minimalist style. The personal and sensitive handling of reduced, often repetitive, artistic means in her works leaves them metaphorically charged, evoking a meditative mood in beholders. The artist is especially interested in the relationship between two-dimensional planes and spatial volumes and between the artwork and the surrounding space.
Heidi Künzler trained as a graphic designer and attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Bern. In 1971, she stopped working with applied arts and devoted herself entirely to her artistic career. She created her first collages in the late 1970s and 1980s, after which she began working on etchings that focus on lines as a motif. These lines are sometimes straight, curved, tapered, or they recede and divide a surface. Other times, they form multi-layered structures in which they concentrate or disperse. She then made graphic prints with virtual lines created through the repetition and variation of dots. Repetition and variation are themes Künzler also pursued in painting, which she began in the mid-1980s. Her paintings often consist of several parts and are mostly monochrome in the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. An exception is her four-part work “Progression schwarz” in which the black planes on four, almost human-sized canvases change in progression as the white wedges on the upper and lower edges also progressively change in size. Künzler occasionally paints the sides of her pictures, thus turning the wall itself into the picture support. In the late 1990s, she worked with serial wooden objects that she spray-painted in a single color. These protrude from the wall and their distance to each other relates to the space around them. Her more recent objects are made of glass and are presented in installations.
Heidi Künzler also focuses on minimalist solutions in graphic art, painting, and installations, as can be seen in her work for the Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst and in her art-in-architecture project for the police building in Frauenfeld. The minimal, precise interventions made by the artist in these works are representative for her overall oeuvre.
Ursula Meier
Heidi Künzler trained as a graphic designer and attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Bern. In 1971, she stopped working with applied arts and devoted herself entirely to her artistic career. She created her first collages in the late 1970s and 1980s, after which she began working on etchings that focus on lines as a motif. These lines are sometimes straight, curved, tapered, or they recede and divide a surface. Other times, they form multi-layered structures in which they concentrate or disperse. She then made graphic prints with virtual lines created through the repetition and variation of dots. Repetition and variation are themes Künzler also pursued in painting, which she began in the mid-1980s. Her paintings often consist of several parts and are mostly monochrome in the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. An exception is her four-part work “Progression schwarz” in which the black planes on four, almost human-sized canvases change in progression as the white wedges on the upper and lower edges also progressively change in size. Künzler occasionally paints the sides of her pictures, thus turning the wall itself into the picture support. In the late 1990s, she worked with serial wooden objects that she spray-painted in a single color. These protrude from the wall and their distance to each other relates to the space around them. Her more recent objects are made of glass and are presented in installations.
Heidi Künzler also focuses on minimalist solutions in graphic art, painting, and installations, as can be seen in her work for the Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst and in her art-in-architecture project for the police building in Frauenfeld. The minimal, precise interventions made by the artist in these works are representative for her overall oeuvre.
Ursula Meier
Works by Heidi Künzler
