JEAN-DANIEL ROHRER

Born in 1960, in Tramelan, Switzerland, Rohrer immigrated to Canada in 1989, making Montreal his home.

Jean-Daniel Rohrer’s visual language developed from the world of graphic arts and emerged from the pictorial tradition before being filtered through a unique and distinctive exploration of his medium. Painting, collage, stenciled letters and numbers, a mix of memory fragments, signs, writings and ideograms stream together. From this complex structure emerges a body of work of striking originality and marked contrasts. 

In RHYTHMS AND CORRESPONDENCE repetition has become a way of lending rhythmic cadence to Rohrer’s art and the viewer can recognize these guideposts throughout Rohrer’s journey. Here we find images that occur in both past and present works, and symbols which are mirrored within the same work.  In this new exhibition Rohrer continues this rhythmic beat, transporting the viewer back to the past only to astonish them with a stunning new perspective.

Rohrer bases his reflections on references to the Renaissance. In weaving together different memories, relying on varied and multiple sources, he manages to reconcile the modernity of his style with tradition. Both simplicity and density are interwoven into his works, which arrest the gaze and awaken the eye, the intellect and the heart.  Drawing connections between imagery, metaphors and between the hidden and the revealed, the viewer continues his journey marked by the rhythmic regularity of a metronome.  Not wanting to give everything away to the viewer, the strength of his work can be measured by the space given to the viewer to decode and interpret. Contemplating one of Jean-Daniel Rohrer’s works promises a personal journey of discovery through time and space.

Jean-Daniel Rohrer was invited into the Canadian Royal Academy of Art ins 2017, and his works can be found in public and personal collections all over the world.