Youri Messen-Jaschin

Optical art; A trick, an illusion, or a different art form altogether?
Youri Messen-Jaschin studied Fine art at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (student of Robert Cami). Youri spent four years in Paris. He then returned to Lausanne where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts. Youri headed to Zurich and found work as an assistant to the fantastical surrealist Friedrich Kuhn. He also regularly visited the famously inventive father of ‘Alien’, HR Giger, to whom a museum is now dedicated in Gruyères.
From there, Youri went abroad. With another scholarship awarded in 1967, he pursued his artistic research at The University of Gothenburg.

What do exhibition visitors make of a canvas that appears to contain multidirectional black-and-white stripes – or are they gray? Maybe there is a pinkish tinge? Some visitors can see red, green lines on the far right of the canvas. Someone else can see a very particular yellow shade, not quite cerulean or forget-me-not blue.

Op Art stages optical illusions. It’s mathematical in nature; everything is designed, down to hundredths of a millimeter, to mislead the viewer’s eyes into making their brain detect something that doesn’t exist. The image takes on different hues depending on the vi...

His artistic studies brought him to the Ecole Superieure Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He was a pupil of professor and master Robert Cami and also attended the Hautes études of the Sorbonne University, which included, History of Art, with professor Pierre Francastel from the Ecole Pratique, in Paris .From 1962 to 1965 he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, where he worked with the engraver and painter Ernest Pizzotti. He debuted his creations at the Lausanne EXPO, in 1964 (Swiss fair), where he presented his kinetic sculptures of glass and acrylic resin.Youri was searching for new forms of art. He worked two years in The Center of Contemporary Engraving in Geneva. But it was in Zurich that he expanded his pictorial perspective with the experience of the circle above the face, influenced by the Swiss painter Friederick Kuhn. From 1968 to 1970, he studied at the University of Hgskolan for design & Konsthantwerk of Gothenburg, where he made kinetic objects of textiles. In 1967, he met Jess-Rafael Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez and Julio Le Parc during an exhibition at the Kunstmuseum of Gothenburg. By speaking with these artists, he became fascinated by optical art. He then decided to dedicate more and more of his time researching kine...

2025 Foudation Grand-Cachot-de Vent Switzerland
2025 Aperti Collective Exhibition Lausanne
2024 Aperti Collective Exhibition Lausanne
2023 Aperti Collective exhibition Lausanne
2022 Popa Museum, Porrentruy Switzerland
2019 Chelsea | International art competition | digital show | New York
2019 Art Room Gallery | on line
2019 Galerie du Château, Renens Switzerland
2018 Rencontre à Rossinière Switzerland
2018 - POPA Museum ( Op art museum | Porrentruy | 20.04.2018
2017 - Switzerland - Galerie Kornfeld Bern Laupenstrasse 41 | from 31.10.2017 to 16.12.2017
2017 - Switzerland - Art Basel
2017 - Switzerland - Aperti Lausanne
2016 - Russia - Chanel 1, Television. Moscow
2016 - Bulgaria - 6th International Painting & Mixed media Competition Sofia
2015 - Switzerland - Pasche Paudex
2014 - Denmark, Danish design center Copenhagen
2013 - Switzerland - Aminterartmania Ltd Lausanne
2013 - Switzerland - Galerie du Château, Renens
2012 - Switzerland - Villa Dutoit, “miseàsac“, 200 artistes de Visarte Suisse, Geneva
2012 - Brazil - MAM Museo Arte Moderno « Arte Conceptual Youri Messen-Jaschin » Sāo Paolo
2007 - Japan - Sakima Art Museum Okinawa Prefecture
2007 - Japan - "International Print Exhibition Tokyo 2007" Tokyo Metropolitan Museu...