press reports:
Galerie Regio
[…] In the orangery the paintings of a young artist from Basel are to be seen. Oil on canvas from Urban Saxer, who is presenting his work publicly only for the second time. He works with precision, without showing off. He reduces; on a monochrome surface one or two objects, key or vase for example, are presented very flat in combination with a geometrical surface. Everything appears calculated and cool. But there is a quiet movement in the light. Tiny deviations from the ideal forms start breathing, weights slightly moved out of place. A play of the colour within the colour of the countless layers on top of each other, the holes in the coarse canvas, or, where the colour becomes denser and seals off its own texture. Vitality in mastered forms. […]
Lukas Ammann, Badische Zeitung, D-Freiburg, May 1999
Art/ Urban Saxer in the Galerie Christine Brügger
Isa. Urban Saxer is largely unknown in artistic circles and in his first exhibition in the art gallery Christine Brügger modestly calls attention to his impressive work.
The artist living in Basel presents paintings which manage entirely with the most concise elements regarding form and content. Surfaces with only one colour evoke spatial underdetermination. Arranged are the contours of vases, bowls, bottles and lines or geometrical forms arranged primarily perceived as non object related.
In this simplicity the surface is quickly scanned by the eye, but not immediately rationally grasped. Through the presence of tradable objects or clearly structured forms within the unreachable context, originates the multi-layered tension which Saxer’s works carry within them.
In his paintings the artist emphasises the importance of levelling the forms which are perceived as abstract with those that are concrete. His attitude becomes apparent when he combines both the readable and the supposedly unreadable in the same undifferentiated pictorial reality. He is mainly concerned with the tension between different surfaces, as separated forms isolated from concreteness and still only perceptible as such in connection with those surrounding them.
Once a little while is spent to consider Urban Saxer’s paintings, the perception of the forms returns an impressive time-space experience, but they can just as well offer a visual pleasure on the surface of the painting, immediately attracting the eye with its clear structures and minutely painted precision of the forms.
Isabel Jungo, Der Bund, Bern, 16.03.99
Translations: Ruedi Jean-Richard