ADRIAN SCHIESS (Switzerland, 1959)."Ciel en mars", 2004.Oil, lacquer, acrylic and transparent film on aluminium.Signed, titled and dated on the back.It bears a label from the Galerie Nächst St.Stephan gallery in Vienna.Provenance: Important Spanish Collection.Size: 50 x 60 cm.The title "Sky in March" reveals that, despite the abstract appearance, an idyllic landscape is hidden behind the pictorial material. This is how Adrian Schiess works with abstraction: evoking through titles. These abstractions are made of densely lacquered aluminium panels. They are usually displayed on the floor, which forces the viewer to move between them, and thus to become part of the artist's process. In this way, they cannot be defined as paintings or sculptures. They are born out of a dialogue with each visitor: "I don't consider the panels as pictorial objects. They are things next to other things. They are paintings on whose glossy surfaces reality is reflected," explains the artist. Adrian Schiess, born in Zurich, lives and works in Mouans-Sartoux, France. His work flirts with a variety of formats (photography, canvas, reflective coloured boards...) but with a single objective: to deal with the appearance of the real. Within contemporary art, they show a commitment to abstraction, which, according to Adrian Schiess, is the only way to show that which is not subject to any extrinsic determination of its own. Schiess has had solo exhibitions at the Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain PACA, Marseille, France, the Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur, Switzerland, the Musée d'Art Moderne, St. Etienne, France, Indianapolis, USA, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, USA. St. Etienne, France, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Germany, Villa Merkel, Galerien der Stadt Esslingen, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland, Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona, Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nürnberg, Kunsthaus Bregenz, FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Johanneum, Graz, The New York Kunsthalle, New York, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, and numerous institutional group exhibitions worldwide.