H.R. Giger

Hans Rudolf “Ruedi“ Giger; (5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss surrealist painter, whose style was adapted for many forms of media, including record-albums, furniture and tattoo-art. Giger’s first success was when H. H. Kunz, co-owner of Switzerland’s first poster publishing company, printed and distributed Giger’s first posters, beginning in 1969. Giger’s style and thematic execution were influential. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for their design work on the film design for the Alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV and earned him an Oscar in 1980. His books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II (1985) and the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine continued his rise to international was admitted to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in is also well known for artwork on several music recording albums including ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery and Deborah Harry’s KooKoo. In 1998 Giger acquired the Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland, and it now houses the H.R. Giger Museum, a permanent repository of his work 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. 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. 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,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 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. Giger had a relationship with Swiss actress Li Tobler until she committed suicide in ’s image appears in many of his paintings. He married Mia Bonzanigo in 1979; they divorced a year and a half later. The artist lived and worked in Zürich with his second wife, Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger, who is the Director of the H.R. Giger Museum. On 12 May 2014, Giger died in a hospital in Zürich after having suffered injuries in a fall. [from Wikipedia] Music: Steve Roach “Drift“