Désirée de Lamarzelle : When you paint, you speak of stepping into the arena: who wins?

Yves Zurstrassen: Painting is a battle, or rather, a beautiful fight, from which I emerge victorious if the painting is successful, or at least finished.

How do you know it’s finished?

Y.Z.: It’s the experience of 45 years of work: the eye becomes more refined. But it’s not that simple, and I’ve ruined many paintings. Besides, you can ruin one painting and succeed with another right after. You can rework a canvas, but I don’t really like going back to it. I usually paint using a system of windows, like stencils, that hide the other parts of the painting, and when I remove them, the composition is finished.

You also paint small works. How do they differ from your large canvases?

Y.Z.: Actually, I start with small canvases that I then enlarge. They are both complete paintings in their own right and mediums that allow me to experiment a lot. I feel freer in my exploration compared to a large format, which can take a week, sometimes a month, to complete.

You exhibited in a gallery in Saint-Étienne whose immense space resembles a museum.

Y.Z.: Yes, it’s wonderful for displaying large paintings. Bernard Ceysson was the director of the Saint-Étienne Museum, an extraordinary institution, before deciding at age 70 to become a gallery owner. He is a highly cultured man who has known all the artists and has written numerous books. Together with his son Loïc Bénétière, they opened their gallery, Ceysson & Bénétière, which is also in Paris, Lyon, and New York. Exhibiting there is a dream come true because it’s a beautiful space that rivals contemporary art museums.

How does one become a painter? What was the turning point?

Y.Z.: Even though I come from a middle-class family of wool industrialists, I’ve always wanted to become a painter: I still remember the smell of my best friend’s older brother’s painting studio, where we were always snooping around. I feel more like a painter every day, but I’m also passionate about other artists.

In fact, my journey in painting is intertwined with all the friendships I’ve forged with artists. I’m a self-taught painter. I didn’t study art; I learned on the job, drawing heavily from the artists and museums I frequented assiduously: that was my school. My major artistic revelation was the American school of the 1950s to 1970s, artists like Pollock, Rothko, De Kooning, and Franz Klein.

They embody the movement known as Abstract Expressionism or Action Painting, where their brushstrokes are the expressions of their emotions. Before that, I really loved Kandinsky, Poliakoff, Nicolas de Staël, and of course Matisse. Not to mention artists like Paul Klee, who shared with me their joy of painting and their love of music. Their freedom in painting has always guided me.

Is it true that music has also influenced you greatly?

Y.Z.: When I paint, I’m accompanied by music, which is my second passion, because it brings me great joy. I am an abstract painter, and music is a bit like my landscape. When I was starting out, I listened to a lot of classical music like Bach, Beethoven... But today, I mainly listen to free jazz for its rhythm: I call it music for painting. Every time I listen to Miles Davis or John Coltrane, something new happens in relation to my artistic evolution. Deep down, it’s a bit like a form of meditation, where I try to free my mind: it is at that precise moment that I truly begin to paint.

Your painting is defined as belonging to the movement of lyrical abstraction. Does that resonate with you?

Y.Z.: I have immense admiration for those artists who wanted painting to find the same freedom as music and who have guided me throughout my career. When the director of the Hartung Bergman Foundation chose me for his exhibition dedicated to lyrical painting to be featured alongside great names in contemporary painting such as Jaffe, Twombly, Frankenthaler, Polke, and Christopher Wool, it filled me with pride. When I paint, I don’t start from the figurative but from a process where I let myself be carried by the music, the light, and the place.

Does inner solitude play a role in defining the artist?

Y.Z.: I have gradually managed to become a painter, even if it is the public, collectors, writers, and museums who will perhaps decide to place me where they think I deserve to be. My life is painting, so I’m very lucky to sell paintings and have my work exhibited. But that could all end tomorrow. It’s a risk worth taking, because history has shown us that great painters of the French school of the 1950s, like Bazaine or Manessier, were adored and then completely forgotten. Enduring is very stressful, but you must never give up and take more risks. In the face of failure, you have to start over.

An article written by Désirée de Lamarzelle

Translated by Bethszabée Garner