Exposition Lavoir Vasserot - Stefan Szczesny

For his new exhibition at the Lavoir Vasserot in Saint-Tropez, Stefan Szczesny presents a selection of his cheerful, colorful new paintings, as well as a series of sculptures in colored steel. An artist of international renown, Stefan Szczesny has lived and worked in Saint-Tropez since 2001. Co-founder of the Nouveaux Fauves (die Neuen Wilden) in the early 1980s, he is one of the emblematic representatives of the Nouvelle Figuration, whose work developed alongside Figuration Libre in France, the Italian Trans-avant-garde and Bad Painting in the United States.

A multidisciplinary artist, Stefan Szczesny uses a wide range of creative techniques in large-scale architectural projects, such as the Kempinski Hotel Bahía in Estepona in 2000, including painting, drawing, engraving, ceramics, sculpture, photography and glasswork. He also works in Spain, creating 137 panels and ceramic vases in collaboration with Atelier de Peter Thumm.

His visual language draws inspiration from Renaissance iconography and the compositions of modern masters such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, whose fundamental principle of "drawing in color" he adopts to transcribe his own idealized vision of Paradise on Earth. A sensual paradise, punctuated by the pure flat tones of color that line the background of his canvases.

The artist's work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in France (notably at the Centre d'Art La Malmaison, 2001; the Palais des Papes, Avignon, 2014; Les Baux-de-Provence, 2019; Saint-Tropez, 2017 and 2021; Grimaud, 2022), and internationally. In 2020, he was chosen to illustrate the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals on canvas and sail. This project, which will continue until 2030, will give rise to exhibitions around the world and the Sailing #Art4GlobalGoals event, a regatta featuring 17 sailing ships adorned with sails painted by Szczesny, which will soon dock on Lake Tegern and in Zurich, from June 21 to 24, 2024.