Artist Name: Simon Kiener
Residency Dates: March – May 2022
Born: 1988
Hometown: Bern, Switzerland
Lives & Works: Bern, Switzerland
URL: www.simonkiener.ch
Education: 2007-2010 apprenticeship graphic design, 2011-2015 Bachelor of Arts, Illustration Fiction HSLU Luzern/HGB Leipzig
Bio/Statement:
Simon Kiener is an independent illustrator, cartoonist and co-founder of the first and only labour union for illustrators in Switzerland. His drawings and (short) comics have been published in magazines such as Strapazin and internazionale (Italy), and exhibited in Switzerland, Germany and Russia.
His drawings feature a modest graphical language that is shaped by a clear line. Inspired by traditional handcraft, he works with ink and nib to draw black and white images that become colored on the computer. Precise observation in everyday life, personal experiences and imaginative thoughts have an important value in his work that often reveal an autobiographical approach.
In April 2022 Kiener participated in the internationally well-known Fumetto Comic Festival Lucerne where he presented the current state of his first graphic novel “Once upon a time in Tscharnergut” which received a grant from the Department of Culture of Bern in 2021.
His book “90 Postcards from New York” (drawn at his first stay in New York just before the pandemic) will be published next year by vatter&vatter.
Kiener is currently working on another graphic novel about Coney Island at the beginning of the 20th Century and also collecting sketches and stories in New York City.
