Working jointly with engraving, drawing and painting, Simon Kroug uses these three techniques to produce his artistic work: drawing helps - and vice versa - to formulate his artistic vision.

Working jointly with engraving, drawing and painting, Simon Kroug uses these three techniques to create his artistic work: drawing helps - and vice versa - to formulate and create the engraved or painted work.

For the engraved work, he works in particular with woodcutting, and claims this technique for its tangible relationship with living matter, its immediacy in the act of engraving, and its almost meditative slowness. Both a precise and restrictive process, xylogravure requires the engraver to confront the image by apprehending it in the form of solids and surfaces, rather than in terms of contours or lines. Furthermore, intaglio engraving* gives the gesture of engraving a definitive aspect, which for the artist is another way of fixing movement and the moment in a form of perpetuity.

Beginning his work with a photograph or sketch from life, he transcribes this image onto a wooden matrix, then prints it in black or colored ink. The choice of black or color depends above all on the result that Simon Kroug wants to achieve with an image: black and white gives it a classic spatial quality, while color gives the print a more contemporary vibrancy.

The images are born from a narrative borrowed from a literary text or a personal dreamlike fiction. Although a common thread running through the elaboration and construction of the work, this narrative remains in the background and does not replace the visual aspect of the final image, sometimes surviving only in the title.

A graduate of ECAL, Simon Kroug co-manages the relief atelier galerie in Lausanne. His work is shown in Switzerland and Europe (France, UK) in solo and group exhibitions.

*Thumbprinting, synonymous with engraving in relief, refers to all engraving processes in which only the raised parts are inked, thus sparing the parts carved out by the engraver. It is mainly used for woodcuts and linocuts.