Wild, Clemens
Sam (Samantha)
Clemens Wild, "Sam (Samantha)", 2016, graphite, coloured pencil, felt pen and acrylic paint on paper, 219 x 99,5 cm, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne
Author
Wild, Clemens,
(1964), Suisse
Biography
Clemens Wild was born in Bern to a family of booksellers. A difficult birth left him visually impaired and developmentally delayed. In 1982, at the age of 18, he became a resident and apprentice at Humanushaus, a residential and work community for people with learning difficulties. He still lives there to this day.
Wild has harboured a lifelong passion for drawing and fantasy. His earliest works were inspired by female models and photo stories in teen magazine Bravo. Since 2012, he has pursued his artistic practice at Rohling, a Bern-based collective of artists with and without cognitive impairments. Wild first gained attention for a series of drawings depicting women carrying out cleaning and other manual tasks. Next to each portrait, he wrote a fictional story based on the subject’s personal account, in which the woman talks about her background, hopes and dreams. These pieces reflect the artist’s admiration for people who fulfil essential roles but rarely receive recognition for the work they do. Wild’s comic strips are executed with a free hand, and the lack of embellishment retains the drawing’s original vitality. Many of these works are also devoted to the day-to-day lives of people in undervalued occupations.