Urs Aeschbach | Residency

July – December 2022 — Visual Arts

Swiss visual artist Urs Aeschbach has been awarded a 6-month residency in South Africa from July – December 2022 through the annual open call issued by Atelier Mondial in Basel. He will split the residency between Johannesburg and Cape Town and hopes that the new contexts will inspire fresh impulses in his work.

Having recently retired after 15 years teaching painting at the Art University in Berne (HKB) alongside his own studio practice, Urs is looking for new perspectives and inspiration in his work. During his residency Urs plans to go on walks through the city and meet with other artists to share and exchange about their work. He is curious and keen to encounter the unforeseen, and explains: “Being alone, being an echo chamber and losing oneself and finding oneself as someone else and suddenly finding what you weren’t looking for and trying to tie up a thousand loose ends in your head, knowing that you’ll never get to the end. I am convinced that the force of the foreign does not block or unsettle, but rather spurs me on, makes me more daring, drives me to swim to unimagined shores. I expect the stay in South Africa to be fruitful, fulfilling and an exciting time. I don’t want to enter the residency with a preconceived project from my studio in Basel but, on the contrary, to let myself be completely open and free to the city. I can’t say whether I will return with paintings or drawings, or whether I will build models and use them for animated films. But I am firmly convinced that Johannesburg will inspire me in my work.”

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Aarau 1956, Urs Aeschbach lives and works in Basel, Switzerland. He completed his training as a primary and secondary teacher before continuing his studies at the art academy in Geneva (now Head). Since completing his studies, Urs has worked in his own studio mainly as a painter. Until the end of February 2022, he taught painting at the Art University in Berne (HKB) for the last 15 years. He has received several art awards and grants, including the Swiss Art Award twice. Urs has been an artist in residence in Paris, Rome, Cairo, Varanasi, Berlin and Johannesburg/Cape Town. He has exhibited widely in Switzerland and abroad, and has carried out several art-and-construction works.