BIOGRAPHY

Alex Rabus, born in Le Locle (Switzerland) on October 6, 1944.
My German-born father was an optician in Neuchâtel.
My mother, Eléonore Pacini (Artist Name: Aïda Pacini), was a painter and a musician as well as an excellent mother and a great cook.
The family of Ferdinand Arthur, Eléonore’s father, was originally from Florence.
My sister and I, both myopic, naturally soaked up this mingled and warm atmosphere.
After years of school, as mediocre as they were primary and secondary, I took my chances with the École Cantonale d’Art in Lausanne where I stagnated in deep boredom for four years, mostly because, in spite of all my obvious efforts, I was chronically unable to adapt to school life... I did imprint, however, on Albert Yersin, our engraving professor, a wonderful man and an artistic genius, who knew how to share with us his world and his passions (Dürer, Dubuffet…) while respecting and encouraging the personality of each of his students.
After a few years as a graphics artist, I decided to work the night shift in a factory. It was a way to free my mind in order to paint. What a delight to be able to disappear! Far away, deep within myself. Away also from the good taste that the 1960s and 70s elite was absolutely sure about. Really! At that time what was good was not in doubt: American cinema, Stalin, Le Corbusier, the proletariat, Pierre Boulez, a highway... The same for what was ugly: American imperialism, kitsch, modern style, Gallé, Gaudi, Hundertwasser, Rachmaninov, Gustav Mahler… anything old, bourgeois, sentimental...
A few shows punctuated this hesitant and musical period marked by my exaggerations: the FBG Gallery and the Galerie des Amis des Arts in Neuchâtel, (1992, 1997 and 2001). Publication of EXCÈS, a catalogue covering thirty years of painting, commitments to the cause of ecology and various other reflections, then TÊTES, another volume composed of drawings, texts and paintings, “Massa, Alex et Ken”, as well as a series of paintings depicting the river Areuse.
In 2006 a family show with Renate, Till (born in 1975) and Leopold (born in 1977): textile art, painting, sculpture, installations; a video at the Galerie des Amis des Arts (available on our website www.rabus.ch) has inspired some gallery owners, in particular www.aeroplactics.net in Bruxelles and www.stadtgalerieschwaz.at in Austria.
Since 1970, and especially since 1989 (the year when chance freed me from the obligation to earn a living, not without first tripping me up), love, family and responsibilities became a happy burden but there was a pain as well, an obsession: to paint and defend nature, this divine, generous and implacable womb where we come from, where we live, where we’re going, temporarily subjected to denatured arrogance.
The future, as radiant as it will be, will also be full of nostalgia, which will bring us to finally love what we are destroying: the binds that unite us and the old trees that give us shade.

Alex Rabus, Neuchâtel, March 2009

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