Background
Bruno Jakob was born in 1954 in Jegenstorf, Bern, Switzerland.
Bruno Jakob was born in 1954 in Jegenstorf, Bern, Switzerland.
During 1976 - 1978 Bruno studied at the Malklasse in Kunstgewerbeschule Basel, Switzerland. Later he attended Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1978 - 1981.
Bruno Jakob devoted his career to art. He creates paintings that immediately engage the viewers. Based on the premise that pictures do not need to be visible in order to be real, Jakob has developed a body of work that radically questions the cultural faith in visual evidence. Bruno Jakob works on his paintings in a very traditional manner. He uses paintbrushes, different waters, and steam to draw on canvases, paper, and walls.
Bruno is interested in capturing thoughts and impressions. The artworks remain empty to the eyes of the viewers only because Bruno Jakob uses energy, brainwaves or love instead of pigments. The on-going series is appropriately named "Invisible Paintings." Bruno Jakob has also employed natural forces to paint his pictures. Thus, the series "The Visitors", created in 2008, was painted by snails that crawled over and ate their way through papers that had been laid out on the ground beforehand.
In 2011 Bruno Jakob was invited to participate in the 54th Venice Biennial, where he exhibited two installations at the Arsenale and in the Main Pavilion. The artwork "Breath", created during 2010 - 2011, was made up of seven parts, six of which were installed in the exterior of the Arsenale while the artist kept the seventh part in his mind. Over the course of the exhibition period, more and more visible traces started to appear on the apparently blank canvases.
Bruno Jakob recently accepted the invitation to paint in front of an audience on several occasions. The performances by the artist take on a life of their own, marked by Bruno Jakob’s quiet and concentrated gestures and often accompanied by Hans Witschi on the piano. The painting performances are in the process of becoming and thus perfectly reflect the artist’s understanding of art as being transient.
Bruno Jakob adheres to the artistic traditions of Neo-Minimalism.
