“Overwhelmed by the countless methods of plastic expression, discovered on my various trips in West Africa, I decided to return there in 1982 in order to learn the traditional techniques of tanning with lost-wax casting. Once I’d acquired the basics, my research began on the envelope of the human body. Then I was drawn to the concept and the representation of movement as well as the essence of emptiness and the relationship it has with matter. These attractions changed certain aspects of my approach. This need for breaking things down resulted in outlaying strips or plates developing in space. These bronze or ceramic prints of an anthropomorphic nature, managed to further express momentum, taking off or vertigo. From the body itself, only the idea remained, a presence amongst the emptiness, the purity of lines moving towards abstraction.

Afterwards, my research in plastic led me to use various materials like wood, metal, clay, stone, leather, cardboard, paint, ink or paper. For the last few years, I’ve been working with pebbles that I incorporate into my work. I assemble them, insert them in to the wood or the iron, coordinate them on to mobiles or mount them on springs, accumulate them, hoard them, heap them up, group them together, pile them up or cram them together when I’m doing my installations. Sometimes patinized or painted, the pebble - a natural material - is one of my companions in the workshop. With wood and metal, it is a source of inspiration and the leitmotivs of my recent work. Canvas, wax and pigments accompany them.

I often turn my attention towards projects that are destined to be placed amidst public authorities and that are carried out with the collaboration of different fields of professions for their presentation.

Questioning is part of my approach, intailing exchange and sharing. Culture, social and environmental experiences are closely linked, leading to projects or realisations leading to various events and relationships. Opening creative spaces - where one can move and express oneself - gives a meaning to its use, to develop ones senses. Entering in to contact with a place through an art work, becoming integrated, overlapped, “be part of the landscape”, as well as becoming as one with the environment and our fellow beings.

Pierre JAGGI