Colorful Sports in the Engadin
Fall 2000
(Translation of German newspaper article)
The 19-year old artist Melinda Hürzeler was born in Aargau (CH), but for the
last 14 years has been living in Pontresina where she completed all her schooling. Now she's in her
fourth year of an apprenticeship as a draftsman in Samedan.
Drawing has always been her favorite hobby and since two and a half years the public is seeing her Art.
She used to draw mainly with pencil or pen, but since learning about abstraction at her draftsman-school,
she now enjoys coloring her paintings with strong Neocolor. Hürzeler has a great passion for drawing
portraits. In 1999, visitors of her first exhibition at the Hotel San Gain in St.Moritz, were surprised
by her portrait collection of famous people like James Dean, Bob Marley and Marilyn Monroe, which were
painted with humor, yet with a lot of expression. In spite of the simple planes with which the portraits
were created, typical characters were brought out. Other objects, such as an old Pirates ship became modern
looking with these strong abstract colors. The joyful air of these paintings encouraged many visitors to get
a portrait of themselves, and the young artist was able to report great success after her first exhibition.
In the winter 2000, she got the opportunity to exhibit her new works at the Hotel Waldhaus am See in St.Moritz
where we were able to observe her paintings during month of January. And for the first time, she published a
32-page book, where all her latest works were displayed. Again, her paintings were very well received by
visitors and she was able to get about 15 commissions. Now she has concentrated this year on one specific
theme: Sports in the Engadin. To her joy the Hotel Waldhaus offered their rooms again this winter to exhibit
her works for 6 weeks. Because of the importance of winter sports in the Engadin and people's fascination with
these winter sports, she took on the challenge to picture typical scenes of the sports world in her colorful
Neocolor technique. During the exhibition the young woman watched anxiously to what the reactions would be.
What about her future? A year ago she did not know yet in which direction she would go. However, she now plans
to start in August of next year a 4-year study at a professional Art school in New York, where she hopes to
learn many new techniques and to improve her own. But first we are invited, to view her works of "Sports in
the Engadin", from February 4th until March 18th at the Hotel Waldhaus am See in St.Mortiz.
