Anton Kaestner - #123 - M - " Lava #2 ".

Unique piece, original painting by Anton Kaestner, directly from the workshop.
#123 - M - " Lava #2 ".

Spray acrylic on a 3mm plexiglas sheet.
Transparencies on print.
This is not a print. It is an original 'multi-layer' artwork with a glossy finish that resembles the application of resin, creating a unique effect.

Dimensions: Inch 17.3 * 12.6 * 0.12 / 44 * 32 * 0.3 cm without frame.

This table is delivered without a frame.
High-quality frame from the German brand Nielsen in aluminum, reference 34 Black Matte (Inch 0.23 × 1.38 / 0.6 × 3.5 cm) recommended and available at shipment for an additional amount of €90 including tax.

The work is signed on the back.
An Authenticity Certificate accompanies it.
The delivery is covered by insurance.

Anton Kaestner is a Swiss painter, sculptor, and author based in Paris. His works are exhibited throughout Europe, in Switzerland, and Dubai. More information and options are available at www.antonkaestner.com.

Next exhibition - Lausanne March 2026.


Biography

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, I grew up surrounded by the natural beauty and cultural richness of my homeland. Creativity was valued in my family, and it was my late grandfather, a craftsperson & artist, whose influence planted the seed for what would eventually become my life's passion.
In 1993, I began painting privately, experimenting with countless acrylics in A4 and then A3 notebooks -I have always felt that big pictures come straight at you, domineering and intimidating, while small works can inspire much more love. I was first drawn to non-figurative painting and abstract expressionism.
Over time, and while I consider myself an atheist, I also developed a fondness for spiritual materials as they resonated with my exploration of human existence and the deeper truths of nature and life.

However, the path to truly becoming an artist wasn’t immediate.

For over three decades, I pursued an international business career that took me across the globe, from the United States to Morocco, Belgium, across Asia and France. My travels broadened my perspective, exposing me to a wide range of cultural influences. Wherever I went, I immersed myself in the local art scenes and engaged with the creative energy of each place.
Despite the focus on my business career, art was always a part of me, quietly simmering beneath the surface. For nearly 30 years, painting became a form of secret meditation for me—a way to break free from the world and focus on my inner self.

I have always found immense satisfaction in painting. Each new work is a journey where I can test my creativity, explore new techniques, and live through genuine experiences. Through my art, I have always hoped to offer others a sincere encounter with beauty, an opportunity to see the world from a different perspective and reflect on their own lives.

In 2023, after retiring from my business career, I fully committed to painting. I established my studio in Paris and began devoting myself entirely to my art. By the end of 2024, I launched my public artistic career, and, to my surprise, my work quickly gained recognition, finding homes in private collections all over Europe, especially in Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.

At the end of 2025, I moved to a bigger studio in an vacant sacristy in Lisieux, Normandy.


Artistic CV

My first solo exhibition, "Échos," held in Paris at the end of 2024, showcased a distinctive approach to art, away from traditional painting techniques: I paint with acrylics, metallic pigments, and sprays on the back of recycled extruded plexiglass (Perpex), a light, smooth, glossy and sometimes
fragile surface. This process prevents me from seeing the work as it develops. I have no visual feedback or control during the process—something I welcome. I allow “random experiments” -anything goes to short-circuit reason! - to guide the outcome, the layers & mirror effects I create, and leave room for revelation and discovery when the piece is finally exposed. But let’s be clear: in my pictures chance never takes the decisions; at most, chance asks the questions; meaningful “coincidences” are only possible with a great deal of discipline. This approach that echoes with the revelation / fixation process of photography is challenging and liberating. The values of the composition are enriched by layers and transparencies yet giving each work an “ascetic” quality: I am happy when I recognize “irreducible necessities”, i.e. what we are likely to discover when we stop in silence and light.

I keep my approach deliberately simple. Neither “emotion” nor “theoretical conception” but the experience of being. Neither “rapid consumption” nor “intellectualization / intellectual possession”, but the broadening of consciousness and the exploration of reality, of its visible and invisible stories; my art is a quest for “life at the very heart of life,” for what Alain Damasio calls “le vif.” Although nostalgia has always been part of my work, my paintings are without object. Like all objects, they are objects of themselves. Consequently, they have neither content, nor meaning, nor sense; they are like things, trees, animals, men, or days, which also have neither reason for being, nor end, nor purpose. While my work might sometimes evoke the transparency and luminosity of stained glass, it remains almost entirely abstract. Moreover, plexiglass provides the painting with a shimmering skin where one can glimpse one’s own silhouette, different to each new viewer. Each work acts like a discreet mirror: it lives, it changes, it sees. The interplay of light, colour, and texture, of the missing parts also, only requires empathy. Hopefully, the play between “details for the close” -a detail of a picture is a completely new picture- & “distance for the whole”, will encourage viewers to embark on their own introspective journeys.

I don't claim to have all the answers and want to remain humble about what can be achieved. Simply, I find satisfaction in the continuous process of questioning and growth. Each new creation is a confrontation with my limits, pushing me to refine my skills and explore further what I can accomplish. Painting to me is a daily craft, an exploration, a way to spark meaningful conversations, a quest for a paint so perfect it has no need of us. The age of the informal has only just begun.

As Jean Bazaine would say: "The daily practice multiplies the passion for seeing.



About the coherence in my practice

In the landscape of contemporary art, where concept and form hold equal weight, I seek to create work that is defined not by prominence, but by presence. My paintings—shimmering fields of colour and light within plexiglass—are the quiet results of a long and deliberate inquiry. For me, the true focus is less the final image than the quiet interplay of thought and process that allows it to emerge.

This practice rests on three aligned intentions.

The first is a Withdrawal from Imposed Meaning. By describing the works as “without object” and having “neither content, nor meaning, nor sense,” I hope to gently loosen the expectation of narrative. It is an invitation to step away from decoding, and toward a more direct kind of looking.

This leads to the second intention: the Primacy of Lived Experience. Into that open space, I try to place what I think of as an “experience of being.” The work becomes less an object to be interpreted than a quiet event to be felt—shaped by shifting light, translucent layers, and the faint reflection of the viewer meeting their own gaze. As I often note, the piece “lives, it changes, it sees.”

The third is where idea meets hand: Process as Embodied Thought. Painting on the reverse of plexiglass, working without visual feedback, is a physical practice of letting go. It is a conscious release of control in the act of making. I set conditions, but surrender the outcome, allowing the painting to become what I call an independent “object of itself,” fully revealed only when complete. It is a silent parallel to photographic development—a patient waiting for what arrives “here and now.”

Holding these intentions are a few gentle paradoxes that sustain the work:

Chance and Discipline
I speak of “meaningful ‘coincidences’,” but they are only possible within careful boundaries. Chance is a welcomed guest, but the structure is built with care.

Communication Without Message
I hope to “communicate something” through works I call meaningless. Perhaps what is shared is not a statement, but a state—a texture of light, a quiet presence, a palpable stillness.

Nostalgia for the Present
A soft nostalgia lingers in the work, yet it is curiously aimed at the now: a longing for the “irreducible necessities” found in “silence and light”—a wish for pure presence that the work itself quietly offers.
Effort and Effortlessness

The process requires steady attention, yet aims for a result that feels autonomous, as if it “emerged of its own accord.” I am drawn to what feels perfectly inevitable.
In this spirit, I’ve come to feel that “the age of the informal has only just begun.” My practice is indebted to the spirit of Art Informel, though perhaps with less anguish and more calm—an informality where chance is not a rupture, but a quiet collaborator.

At its heart is a search for “le vif”—the living core. The work leans toward direct experience rather than intellectualization. The modest scale I often choose is meant to encourage intimacy, not spectacle.
In the end, this is simply one artist’s path. My biography, my process, and my reflections are not separate threads, but parts of a single pursuit. I have found that a practice grounded in quiet paradox need not be fragile. Through discipline and clarity, such tensions can become, I believe, a source of resilience.

Anton Kaestner