2. Hans Ruedi Giger
●
was a Swiss surrealist painter, whose style was
adapted for many forms of media, including record-
albums, furniture and tattoo-art.
The Zurich-based artist was best known for airbrush
images of humans and machines linked together in a
cold 'biomechanical' relationship. Later he abandoned
airbrush work for pastels, markers or ink. He was part
of the special effects team that won an Academy
Award for design work on the film Alien. In
Switzerland there are two theme-bars that reflect his
interior designs, and his work is on permanent
display at the H.R. Giger Museum at Gruyères.
3. Giger started with small ink drawings before progressing to oil paintings. For most of his career,
Giger had worked predominantly in airbrush, creating monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal,
nightmarish dreamscapes. However, he then largely abandoned large airbrush works in favor of
works with pastels, markers or ink.[1]
Giger's most distinctive stylistic innovation was that of a representation of human bodies and
machines in a cold, interconnected relationship, he described as "biomechanical". His main
influences were painters Dado,[17] Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dalí. He met Salvador Dalí, to whom
he was introduced by painter Robert Venosa. Giger was also influenced by the work of the sculptor
Stanislas Szukalski, and by the painters Austin Osman Spare and Mati Klarwein.[18] He was also
a personal friend of Timothy Leary. Giger studied interior and industrial design at the School of
Commercial Art in Zurich (from 1962 to 1965) and made his first paintings as a means of art
therapy.[1]
