Portraits and captured moments of life
January 8th 2000
(Translation of German newspaper article)
Exhibition of paintings at the Hotel Waldhaus am See in St.Moritz
Melinda Hürzeler from Pontresina exhibits her paintings until January 28th at the Hotel Waldhaus am See. After her successful exhibition last year at the Hotel San Gian, 18-year old Engadin-girl improved her techniques and now shows her latest works in a modern Neocolor-style.
(aj) Melinda Hürzeler exhibited her paintings for the first time last year at the Hotel San Gian in St.Moritz. Against her expectations, she had great success, seven of her exhibited paintings were sold and additionally she received 17 commissions for portraits. The young artist is in the middle of an apprenticeship as a draftsman in Samedan, but painting has always been her hobby. At times many of her commissions were getting too much and she had to reduce them. "I am not always in the mood to paint and eventually I would not enjoy it anymore. I can't just produce," says Melinda Hürzeler. But thanks to her lenient boss, she was able to spend time with her favorite hobby. Since early childhood it was her passion to draw people, landscapes or fantasies. She was especially fascinated with copying photographs and pictures as precise as possible. Her specialties were with portraits done with pencil. In time she started using colors and experimented with different techniques. The artist has paintings in Aquarelle and Oil pastel, but her favorite medium is Neocolor. First she draws a regular pencil portrait, as soon as the facial expressions are correct, she emphasizes the shadow areas with pen. The pencil sketch gets erased and the remaining areas are colored with Neocolor. Amazingly this last phase takes the most time. In her mind she combines the different matching colors before putting it on the portrait. "One wrong color and the character will not be right", says the young Engadin-girl. The joyful and swinging paintings reflect the spontaneous and open personality of the artist by which many people marveled and quite a few got a portrait of themselves. In spite of the many commissions, Melinda Hürzeler wants to finish her apprenticeship first and continue to paint as a hobby.