Francisco Sierra
Photo Camillo Paravicini, 2011

Francisco Sierra

Born in Chile in 1977, the artist emigrated to Switzerland with his family in 1986 and grew up in Herisau and St.Gallen. The breath-taking perfection of his photorealistic paintings and the complex motifs with a charming, ironic touch of social criticism have already attracted considerable attention. Francisco Sierra provides multiple answers to the question of what contemporary figurative painting could look like.

The unexpected shifts in the form and materials of the items portrayed make his work ambiguous and irritating at the same time. As a result, they are fascinatingly contemporary, particularly because they invoke the great classical traditions of painting. The objects are hardly ever what they appear to be. Just as Francisco Sierra is interested in the pitfalls of contemporary photographic images and the transforming possibilities of painting, he also elegantly reflects upon surreal and conceptual visual ideas, which always revert to the ordinariness of the things he sees. For the viewer, the virtuoso handling of materials, objects and suggestion comes together to create an impressive, visual experience.

Francisco Sierra lives and works in the village of Cotterd, Switzerland.