#abstractartist – Heather’s blog

Pia Fries was born 6^th October 1955 and is a swiss abstract painter.She was born in Beromunster Switzerland and studied sculpture in Lucerne in 1980, and painted under Gerhard Richter at the Kunstaka Dusseldorf in 1986.She lives and works in Dusseldorf in Munich.

Fries uses a wide variation of colours and textures onto wood panel primed with 6 or 7 layers.Her paintings are described as sophisticated yet energetic.The surface must be ridged for the process she uses.Her paintings also merge between painting/and or sculpture due to the techniques she uses.

Dana Friis-Hansen summarizes Pia Fries’ work in a comprehensive review: “Pia Fries is one of an emerging generation of painters whose work results from a conceptual and aesthetic wrestling match modernist painting, the dominant artistic expression of the twentieth century.’

For a few years Fries has taken on an interest in the work of Dutch draughtsman a,painter and engraver Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) one of the leading engravers of the early Notrherm Mannerisms period.She has decided to focus on two of his series ‘The Four Disgracers’ which delves into Greek mythology and the falls of Icarus,Tantalus.Ixion and Phaeton and ‘The Standard Bearers’.Both of these series are known for their technical elements and incredible compostions of which parts of this are reflected in Fries own work.

Adrian heath was born 1920-1992 and was a British painter. He painted abstract and semi abstract pictures in oils and acrylics. He was also a collagist and constructivist

He was born in Burma and attended Bryanston school in Dorset, southern England.1938 he studied art under Stanhope Thorpes at Newlyn. In 1939 and 1945-47 he attended the Slade school of art. Heath served in the RAF as a tail gunner in Lancaster Bombers in WWII but spent almost the entire war as a prisoner of war.

The war was a big influence on heaths work and and his idealisims were felt and shared by an entire generation of post war abstract artists working in England. Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth were also huge influences.

Heath published an essay on Abstract Art: its origin and meaning in 1953. He was chairman of the politically idealist AIA (Artists International Association) from 1954 to 1964 and served on the Arts Council’s advisory art panel from 1964 to 1967.

He helped to organise the first post-war show of abstract art at the AIA gallery in 1951 The idea of the collective of art work was to give way to a better world.His work strayed away from descriptive detail and focused more on light, colour, texture and balanced structure.

In the early 1950’s he was associated with Victor Pasmore and Antony Hill. Due to this he became the main link between the emerging St Ives school and British constructivism. He was also influenced by D’Arcy Thompson.