ARTIST
Michel FR
Switzerland
Michel FR was born in Fribourg in 1976. He graduated as teacher in Fribourg in 1996 and at the School of Visual Arts in Biel/Berne in Graphic Design section in 2001. His various activities include painting independently and teaching at various schools.
First of all, he devoted himself to black and white drawing, brewing up small “home-made” books, including on both text and image. His world is populated by characters, monsters and nameless creatures, friendly and endearing. His paintings demonstrate an unusual humour and portray the weirdness for situations that are often comical, ambiguous and sometimes unhealthy. He likes to work on large formats where the colours are vivid, often depicting humanised animals.Interestingly he never stopped write and comment the paintings. Therefore, texts are an important element that is usually added to his paintings, either in the form of bubbles or directly in the composition.
Since 1998 he has participated in various individual and group exhibitions throughout Switzerland and abroad. Always eager for large formats, he also creates large scale murals or even directly on the exterior and interior facades of buildings, like the murals in Fri-Son in Fribourg and the Hacienda in Givisiez. In 2018, he produced an 24 square-metre illustration for the official photo of the Federal Council in collaboration with Stemutz Photo.He is also well known for his “Live Paintings”, notably for Swatch, Red Bull and Eastpack.
