Art and the Divine

More than a thousand meters up the alps, Jasha stares out, over his freshly-planted fruit trees. Some of them aren’t even in his land, but that is completely besides the point. Others have been planted thousands of kilometers away, on his travels. They’re all gifts: to strangers, to the next generations, to humanity.

Jasha knew he was missing something when he was a student. So he got on a train and headed out of Switzerland. “The most important thing was to be on the road. Somewhere, anywhere.. to just move.”

Eventually, he reached the people who lived in the caves of Granada. “It was the first drop of life for me.” I finally had found the direction I wanted to go in.”

Another time, he meditated on a rock in Sicily for three days. And after each journey, he’d come back to his home in the alps, and start on his art. “I started painting on the walls, but I ran out of walls..” His father, the artist Carlo Schmidt, bought him his first canvas. “My art was necessary to express something. To understand the new kind of inspiration from travel, and to channel it.”

“I saw my first steps while working under Oskar Rütsche, in informal art, where you access the art very fast.” Later, I worked with Pierre Zufferey. I explored printing, pigments and how to make a canvas oneself. And then, of course, I learnt a lot through my father.”

“From the beginning, I started developing my technique. It is very simple.. anyone can do it, and it will always be unique to the person. I start with milk, this perfect background, and then build with pigment and color. I have tried oil, coffee grounds… there isn’t anything in my kitchen that I have not experimented with. And that’s how I paint my stars.”

Why stars? “They’re something that is very accessible and recognizable to everyone. And it helps me understand the divine that created me, just as it created the stars. We, all this, is a part of the divine.”

Has Jasha seen the divine? “In many different ways. I can find it in a lot of stuff. In nature, in you, in everything you can see. As I was traveling, I went very far with my soul and consciousness. Through meditation, breathing, yoga and painting. I want to bring back my experiences of the divine, and share it with people.”

“When you express yourself with the stars, you still see them even when you close your eyes. Art and the universe touch me even then. With my eyes closed.”

Exhibitions