Chrys Zumstein

Chrys Zumstein is a visual artist whose work reflects and questions the themes of life, humanity, reality, and fantasy. His works mainly include photography, image editing, drawing, and painting, but are not limited to individual techniques. It is important to him not to limit his activity to one approach, as he has fought against routine all his life; in art, he found a way to break away from it. Zumstein lives and works in Zürich, where he also studied at the F+F School of Art and Media Design. His works are shown in exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad.

In your work, you explore ideas of contradiction. Can you explain what that means and how it presents itself in your work?

Basically, it may not be possible to have a completely consistent world view or a consistent system of rules. Maybe you just have to accept that human existence is absurd at some point. The topic of being human plays a central role in my work. It is about people and the contradictions that we live with every day. For example, contradictions exist in statements and actions. I deal with the questions: “What are contradictions?”, “What kinds of contradictions are there?”, “How do they come together?”, “What can you contradict?” and “What kinds of contradictions are there in the world?” Philosophy also considers the question of whether something contradicts itself and why. It’s not only statements that can be contradicted, but also maxims of the principle of will and action. The term “contradiction” and the related term “antagonism” are philosophical terms from Hegelian and Marxist dialectics. The term dialectic does not refer to the excluded contradiction between traditional and formal logic but to the polar opposites. Contradictions can be both material and ideal phenomena, ie between concepts, ideas, and statements, as well as between historical forces, social classes, tendencies, and developments.

Which artists do you look to for inspiration?

Andy Warhol, Jonathan Meese, Caravaggio, and Banksy.

See more from the artist at: www.chryszumstein.com

Chrys is featured on the Autumn 2024 Edition of Art Seen magazine, published August 2024.