George Print

Christoph Eberle, hyperrealist painter, born 1969, lives and works in Zurich. He graduated as an architect ETHZ, began painting in his early youth, was a self-employed graphic designer for over 20 years and lives now from painting. Tradition and the present Christoph Eberle's hyperrealistic oil paintings are created in the confrontation between tradition and the present. On the one hand, they continue the history of the old and newer masters such as Caravaggio, Jacques-Louis David, Caspar David Friedrich, Giovanni Segantini, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol or Franz Gertsch. These influences and especially Vermeer van Delft's almost photorealistic interpretation of reality meet in Eberle's work a sensitivity that has grown with the digital and high-resolution image reproduction possibilities. Obsession with Detail Christoph Eberle's pictures are constructed from photographs. However, they are not slavish copies of the photographic originals, but each represent a strong and independent pictorial idea. The hyperrealistic realisation is achieved with the finest and most precise brushstrokes. Such a meticulous approach limits the production to a few pictures per year. Composing with light Light as the medium of visual perception is the main element in Christoph Eberle's work. In his pictures, light pours over the objects, constitutes contours, creates sharpness and blurriness. Light reveals and conceals, directs the viewer's gaze. Where a photograph reproduces a moment from a fixed point of view and angle, Eberle's paintings question this point of view. Paradoxically, the calm that emanates from the images sets viewers in motion. They move closer and then again at a distance. Seeing becomes a playful experience. The image deconstructs the self-evidence of the supposedly real. ​ Works between still and still life Christoph Eberle works in series. His works can be roughly divided into two categories: stills and still lifes (objects). In both, moments of everyday life are distilled and recomposed until they coagulate into latently unreal compositions. Their hyperrealistic representation is kept non-judgemental. Interpretation and evaluation take place through observation and remain subjective. Christoph Eberle's object paintings are related to the genre of still life. Painted objects only relate to themselves, the surroundings at best provide the physical stage for the focus. As with classical still lifes, transience is thematised.