The visual language I have developed over the years is based on reduction. For instance, the portraits for the exhibition theme "Fifteen seconds of fame" were practically conceived using only circles and lines. This led me to discover that all faces can be broken down into a recipe of circles.

Interpersonal relationships and navigating new media have long been prominent themes in my work. The series "Living in a box" also explores space and people.

D: Could you share more about your experience establishing Atalier Visual Entertainment and your involvement in online game commissions? What were some of the highlights and challenges?

A: After my studies, I worked for various cultural institutions as an illustrator and graphic designer. It was a thankless job. I decided to hire two programmers and develop and produce online games that could be used for marketing purposes. The company ran smoothly for ten years. After that, I got bored. And since I actually wanted to pursue art, I decided to hand over the company to my partner and return to my passion. During the studio time, I was able to gather incredibly important business experiences.

D: The collaboration with Dare on Gunter Sachs' home at the Schlosshotel Velden, which was featured on Architectural Digest (AD), looks intriguing. Can you explain the concept behind the immersive pictures you created that merge into one complete image from specific points of view?

A: The works created for Schlosshotel Velden underwent a lengthy development process. A total of three months of preparation and planning were necessary before we could begin the actual implementation. There is an extensive video documentation about this.

D: Your approach to transforming Facebook profile images into iconic portraits is unique. In a way it is an early example of the PFP fascination NFT collectors have. Can you expand on the concept of using circle shapes and how it relates to contemporary notions of beauty and vanity, and now with the individual online personal obsession people have on Twitter?

A: When painting large surfaces, such as a multi-story house facade, efficiency becomes an important factor in implementation. A crane costs around 500 CHF to rent per day. This means working quickly if there's any budget left to spare. The question then is how to efficiently create a large image without losing its expression and impact. I began an experiment for this purpose in Australia with my artist friend Joel Van Moore, known as "VANS," who is renowned for his colourful graffiti lettering. The experiment focused on the visibility of letters from a distance of about 500 meters. We painted two styles side by side: a colourful one with hatching, patterns, and various gradients by Joel, and a lettering piece by me that employed flag principles. At around 50 meters distance, the colourful image turned into a grey mess, while the other remained easily readable.

This realization led me to apply the same method to human anatomy. It was clear to me that I could divide the image into larger areas as long as the lines followed the body's anatomy. I also had to consider and define light and shadow conditions within circles or straight lines. After numerous portraits, I noticed that all faces followed a certain pattern.

Here's an example: The pupils are the starting point. When the two circles of the pupils are connected by a larger circle, additional reference points for the positions of other body parts emerge. This seems to work throughout the entire organism. I applied this recipe to various animals with the same result. In summary, the key features of the faces are reduced to surfaces. From a distance, the portrait still appears photorealistic. Our brain seems to have developed the ability to assemble surfaces into a real image in the mind's eye.

I realized that I could also display the portraits very small without losing quality. So, I started asking friends if I could create a portrait of them with the agreement that they would use it as their profile picture on Facebook. After the first 20 portraits, I started receiving commission requests. In total, there are now around 200 portraits that have been created. Many of these portraits can be found in the book "Fifteen seconds of fame". In it, I present each portrait subject with a socially critical question, which is answered with a story or a quote.

D: Do you see any connection to the PFP NFTs that are used on Twitter? Such as the CryptoPunks – an avatar that looks somehow like them - similarly to your series “Fifteen seconds of fame”.

A: No, if anything, that happened unintentionally. The PFP NFTs also came much later. My first portraits were already created in the year 2013.

D: Could you tell us about your NFT release “Pyrochimps” - an art project that has been in the works for more than a decade. How did that expand your art practice?

A: In the year 2017, I was approached by a start-up funded by Swisscom (former dloop AG now rebranded as elementum.art), asking if I wanted to exhibit digitally created images. The images were already connected with blockchain technology at that time. The goal was to adorn the large black screens of television sets in living rooms with licensed art.

Some years later, Remy Burger, my former partner at Atalier, called me and said I needed to get into NFTs. While developing online games in the late nineties, we had started a side project called "PYROCHIMPS". This served as our experimental platform in the realms of film, music, and entertainment. We decided to revive this project. After three weeks of intensive research, we developed a new concept and presented 100 different Pyrochimps as NFTs, each with its own backstory. It gained hype for a short period, as apparently our project was one of the few that Switzerland had to offer. Our primary goal was to familiarize ourselves with this technology and leverage its benefits for my art. The crypto currency market crashed, and the rest is (for now) history.

D: Your largest mural in Shenzhen depicting a colourful baby attached to a smartphone is thought-provoking. Could you share the symbolism and intended impact behind this artwork in enhancing the neighborhood's atmosphere?

A: In the year 2000, my longtime friend Fouad "CEET" and I travelled to China. At that time, China was still very untouched when it came to graffiti. Fouad, who later lived in China for many years, was able to realize various projects with the Chinese authorities. One of these was the artist residency "Jardin Orange" in Shenzhen. The goal was to bring together international and Chinese artists who collaborated to shape the new cityscape of Shenzhen. The mentioned artwork "Online baby" is a motif from the series "Living in a Box". Technology and smartphones are much more advanced in China than we Europeans are aware of. This once provocative image seems to have become commonplace today.

D: What is the latest series you are currently working on? 

A: Currently, I am working on my abstract works on the theme "Unexpected Interruption." The last two exhibitions, accompanied by my latest book, address the vulnerability of complex and entrenched structures in every aspect. My father taught me from an early age that there is no certainty in life. As a foreigner, back when I still had the C-permit, I would have to be the first to leave Switzerland in times of unrest or war. This had a profound impact on me, as I considered Switzerland my home and still do. Especially since I could hardly imagine such a thing in the idyllic world where I was born and raised. However, his point became clear when he gave an example: Switzerland is like a highly functional watch, where many small gears interlock. But it takes only a small grain of sand in the mechanism to bring everything to a halt and plunge it into chaos.

When I was travelling from New York to San Diego on September 11th and the planes crashed into the World Trade Center at the same time, I was in my hotel room. And the example immediately came to mind. Events like this one moved me to explore this theme in my works. The catalyst was a skateboarding accident. It took only a small pebble to bring down even an experienced skateboarder like me. There's even a term for it - "Chalky." Chalkies pose an immediate threat as they suddenly stop the movement of the wheels and can throw the skater off balance. Typically, they leave behind a line resembling a chalk mark, indicating the spot where you were thrown off the board.

These current works bring together many of my diverse interests such as music, rhythm, sports, movement, discipline, repetition, image, graffiti, technology, execution, film, and animation.