Pia Fries

Galerie Johnen + Schöttle, Cologne

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Pia Fries initially studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lucerne, prior to becoming one of Gerhard Richter’s students at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. Her sculptural background is very much evident in her practice throughout her wide raging oeuvre. Fries turned to abstraction in the mid-1980s, following a period focused on figuration, and her paintings started taking the form of picture-objects. Characterised by a sculptural use of the medium of paint, she transforms the pictorial space through textured layered elements, creating a very intense visual experience of movement for the viewer.

Pia Fries had her first solo exhibition in London at Bernard Jacobson Gallery in 2007, followed by a retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur in the same year. Her works have further been exhibited at Galerie Mai 36 in Zurich, Kunstparterre in Munich, Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe, Miles McEnery Gallery in New York and many more.