Stéphane Belzère

Stéphane Kreienbühl, known as Stéphane Belzère (born 6 November 1963) is a Franco-Swiss painter. He lives and works between Paris and Basel.

Biography

Early life Kreienbühl was born in 1963 in Argenteuil (France). Son of the painters Jürg Kreienbühl and Suzanne Lopata, he spent the first five years of his life in Switzerland where he was raised by his paternal grandparents before returning to Cormeilles-en-Parisis to live with his parents.

Education During his studies at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, from which he graduated in 1990, he assisted his parents in various tasks, such as preparing their painting supports or organizing their exhibitions. Influenced by the realism of his father, he first painted there from nature the collection of antique plasters from the art school that were broken by students in 1968 and put away since then in the cellars.

Works From 1991 to 1994, he stayed regularly in Berlin where he depicted the urban landscape and the marks of recent history in the city after the fall of the wall: tunnels between East and West Berlin, dilapidated buildings, backyards...

In 1995, he returned to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris where he had accompanied his father a few years earlier. He paints directly in the "Soft Pieces" room of the Museum the brains and genital organs of animals preserved in formalin jars. He developed this theme of flesh in another series, the "Tableaux-saucisses" : "by painting from jars of food and organs that served as models, I sort of gave myself up to exploring the feeling of attraction/repulsion, the limits of the notions of beauty and ugliness. I thus amassed a collection of jars containing food, by making countless visits to food stores and supermarkets, while at the same time, I painted the jars of the so-called "soft pieces" collection gathered in the comparative anatomy section of the National Museum of Natural History. The visibility of flesh, whether for consumption or for scientific use, fascinated me".

His interest in transparency led him to the "Long paintings" series by observing the sediments in the bottom of anatomical preparation jars. Enhanced by the magnifying effect of glasses, these strata of disintegrated materials evoke glacial and interior landscapes, between figuration and abstraction.

From 1995 to 2013, in his studio in Berlin, he produced a series of small-format paintings, called "Nocturnal Reflections", that ended with the number 700 the day of his fiftieth birthday. Like a sort of diary, he painted his nocturnal full-length portrait, often naked, in the reflection of his studio window.

In 2003, he was chosen the winner of the competition launched by the Ministry of Culture (France) for designing the stained glass windows of the Rodez Cathedral. Completed in 2007 in collaboration with Ateliers Duchemin, his work is based on the idea of the flow of light and life that penetrates all the chapels, introduces a dynamic and a fluidity that symbolize life and its perpetual renewal. He tried to renew the image of God and Saints in a more contemporary and understandable language, by adding more abstract elements in religious iconography, such as the reproduction of an Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the diagram of the nervous system or of the blood network to symbolize the divine thought and represent the immaterial.

At the same time, he also created installations, called "Chemical stained glass", by arranging on shelves some bottles of cleaning products whose transparencies and colors are highlighted by the play of lights.

Between the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, he had three simultaneous shows in public institutions at the Cantonal Museum of Zoology in Lausanne, the Musée Denys-Puech in Rodez and at the Chapelle Saint-Jacques in Saint-Gaudens. In 2013, the Art museum of Pully showed his "Long paintings" after he was awarded the FMES prize of the Sandoz Family Foundation in 2011. In 2021, the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCS) invited him to occupy a room in the museum for a year and a half; this exhibition entitled "Floating Worlds" is thought as a dialogue between his paintings, including an installation specially designed for the occasion and the collection of the Musée zoologique de la ville de Strasbourg.

Between figuration and abstraction, his work offers a reflection on the preservation of flesh, the representation of the body, the brain and the memory. Stéphane Belzère deals with his topics by focusing on the relationship between form and shape, on reflections, variations of light, transparency and color.

Exhibitions Solo exhibitions (selection) 2021–2023: Mondes flottants, Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art 2018: Szenographie einer Familie – Werke von Stéphane Belzère, Psychiatrie Museum, Bern 2015: Pensées colorées, Hommage au peintre Jürg Kreienbühl, Galerie Franz Mäder, Basel 2013: Nachtspiegelungen-Reflets nocturnes, Lage Egal Raum für aktuelle Kunst, Berlin 2013: Le projet des tableaux longs – Prix Fems, Musée de Pully, Lausanne 2013: Œuvres sur papier, Centre d’art, Cesson-Sévigné 2011: Vagues, tourbillon et autres turbulences, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris 2010: Überblick, Galerie Mäder, Basel 2010: Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen 2009: Portraits de famille, etc..., Galerie RX, Paris 2008: Reflets nocturnes, Centre d'art contemporain Chapelle Saint-Jacques, Saint-Gaudens 2008: Peintures etc..., Musée Denys-Puech, Rodez 2007: Peintures en bocal/bocal de peinture, Cantonal Museum of Zoology, Lausanne 2006: Peintures d’après nature, Centre d’art, Épinal 2005: Vitrail chimique et peintures récentes, Galerie RX, Paris 2003: Conserves peintes – Eingemachtes, Café au lit, Paris 2003: Le Fruit de la rencontre – Histoires de bocal, Musée Raymond Lafage, Lisle-sur-Tarn 1998: Alles ist Wurst – Tout est saucisse, Association Fantom e.V., Berlin 1997: Tout est saucisse – Alles ist Wurst, Galerie Art & Patrimoine, Paris

Group exhibitions (selection) 2022: De l’Onirique à la lumière, Château de Taurines 2022: Stéphane Belzère, Diaquarelles – Elisa Haberer, photographies, La nouvelle galerie, Cologne 2022: Memento Espace départemental d’art contemporain, Auch 2020: Pop-Up Artistes, Fondation Fernet-Branca, Saint-Louis 2020: Vitraux d’artistes, de Notre-Dame de Paris à l’abbaye royale de Fontevraud, Fontevraud Abbey 2018: Vitrail contemporain, Couvent de la Tourette, Évreux 2018: Jürg Kreienbühl, Suzanne Lopata, Stéphane Belzère, Kunsthaus Interlaken 2015: L'art dans tous ses états, Oeuvres de la collection du FRAC Ile-de-France, Les Réservoirs, Limay 2015: Le vitrail contemporain, Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris 2014: Frisch gemalt, Museum Bruder Klaus, Sachseln 2012: Memento mori, carte blanche à Karim Gahdab, L’H du Siège – Centre d'art contemporain, Valenciennes 2011: Veilleurs de nuit, centre d’art de Tanlay, Château de Tanlay 2011: La lune en parachute, 20 ans, Centre d’art, Épinal 2010: CARNE, Le 104, Paris 2010: Artistes dans la ville, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Saint-Lô 2009: Open studios, Christoph Merian Stiftung, Basel 2009: Animalia, Musée Barrois, Bar-le-Duc 2009: Stéphane Belzère invite...Marc Desgrandchamps, Sylvie Fajfrowska, Régine Kolle, François Mendras, Anne Neukamp, Françoise Pétrovitch, Renaud Regnery, Philippe Segond, Xiao Fan, Galerie RX, Paris 2009: Eaux d’ici, Eaux de là, Chamalot-Résidence d’artistes 2008: On line, Centre d'art contemporain, Saint-Restitut 2008: Nourritures, corps et âme, Abbaye Saint-Germain/Centre d’art de l’Yonne, Auxerre 2007: L’Invitation au bocal, Frédérique Lucien-Stéphane Belzère, Galerie municipale Jean-Collet, Vitry 2007: Artificialia 3, MABA – Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur-Marne 2006: À taille humaine, ArtSénat, Paris 2006: Quintessence, École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes 2005: Artificialia 2, Musée Barrois, Bar-le-Duc 2005: L'inquiétante étrangeté des objets, Oeuvres du FRAC Ile-de-France, Musée Gatien-Bonnet, Lagny-sur-Marne 2005: Lumières contemporaines, Centre international du Vitrail, Chartres 2004: De leur Temps, MUba Eugène-Leroy, Tourcoing 2002: L’art d’être bête, l’animal dans l’art de Goya à nos jours, École d'Art Claude Monet, Aulnay-sous-Bois 2001: L'Autoportrait contemporain, Musée de Menton 1996: Die Kraft der Bilder, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin

Awards 2011: FEMS Prize, Sandoz Family Foundation, Pully 1997: Paul Louis Weiler Prize, Institut de France 1997: Coprim Foundation Contemporary Art Prize 1990: Aumale Prize, prix Alphonse Cellier Painting Prize, Institut de France 1986: Fondation Princesse Grace Prize, Monaco

Commissions 2018: Realization of paintings for the maternity ward of Hôpital Mignot in Versailles 2017: Realization of a new diorama after Louis Daguerre, Museum of Cormeilles-en-Parisis 2016: Mural paintings for the technical high school Leon Blum in Villefranche-de-Lauragais 2003–2007: Design and realization of stained-glass windows for the Rodez Cathedral 1987: Realization of a diorama after Louis Daguerre for the bicentenary of his birth, Cormeilles-en-Parisis

Collections Kunstmuseum Basel FRAC Île-de-France Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Musée de Boulogne-Billancourt Fondation d'art contemporain Daniel et Florence Guerlain Fondation Colas Sandoz Family Foundation Christoph Merian Stiftung Collection Weber Bank Kunstcollectie Radboud University Medical Center