Born in 1977, Matthieu Gasser dit Graffensttaden grew up in Strasbourg. As a teenager, he spent hours glued to his doctor father's microscope. He was fascinated by the vision of colored cells, which seemed to reveal the depths of his being. He navigates through labyrinths of color, form and light, carried away by the raw beauty of the images.
Introduced to classical painters by his mother, during his studies in cultural mediation at the Sorbonne he admired the insolence of conceptual artists.
As a journalist and organizer of electro events in the 90s, he felt the creative power of mixing and blending genres. Nourished by all these influences, he then embarked on the project he had always carried within him.
In 2019, he created his first cellular portrait using his own saliva cells. A series of self-portraits soon followed. Meeting Laurence, his first love, in 2021 gave another dimension to his initial project. Barely two years after the start of their artistic adventure, Laurence and Graffensttaden are exhibited in Bordeaux's Musée Mer Marine permanent collection with Flore Sigrist for a 4-handed work (bouquet series).
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)