Patrice Morard, born in Fribourg in 1951, is a Swiss figurative painter whose documented career spans from the 1980s to the present day. Although he holds a degree in French literature, philology and musicology from the University of Fribourg, and obtained a diploma in drawing in Bern, he considers himself above all a self-taught painter. His pictorial practice, language and technique were shaped primarily through independent work, observation and the experience of the studio.

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His work places the human figure at the centre of a world in which everyday reality, imagination, spirituality and psychological tension converge. Colour, narrative construction and staging are recurring constants. Over the decades, critics have described a body of work initially marked by a search for beauty, poetry and mysticism, then increasingly cinematic, theatrical and attentive to the tensions of contemporary existence.

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The archives reveal not so much a succession of breaks as a continuous deepening of the work. In the 1980s, Patrice Morard asserted a richly coloured figurative language at a time when figuration still had to defend its place alongside other dominant currents. Contemporary texts refer to a desire to “reconstruct a harmony”, to a poetic and formally assured painting, and to an attention to the sacred, everyday life and inner reality.

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“Each painting is the metaphor of an inner reality.”

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Chapter I — The Narrative Years, 1980s

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During the 1980s, Morard develops the foundations of his narrative language. Figures, landscapes, interiors, animals and symbolic elements coexist within carefully constructed scenes in which the familiar is progressively transformed by imagination. The paintings often suggest stories without  resolving them, allowing gestures, glances and relationships to remain open to interpretation. The human figure already occupies the centre of this pictorial world, suspended between observation, memory and invention.

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Chapter II — The Extended Narrative, 1990–1995

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In the early 1990s, the painting truly becomes a stage. The compositions expand, bringing together increasing numbers of figures, spaces and simultaneous situations. Relationships unfold across the canvas without a single narrative centre, while setting, light, gestures and gazes construct a complex dramaturgy. This development culminates in the 1995 exhibition at the Musée de l’Athénée in Geneva, where Morard was described as a “painter-director” and critics emphasised the cinematic character of his compositions.

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Chapter III — The Electric Years, 1995–1999

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From the mid-1990s, this narrative language intensifies. Colour becomes more charged, movement more pronounced and the relationships between figures increasingly unstable. The compositions retain their theatrical construction but acquire a new energy and psychological tension. Familiar situations are transformed into heightened pictorial worlds in which beauty, desire, unease and ambiguity coexist.

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Chapter IV — The Cinematic Gaze, 1999–2004

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Around the turn of the millennium, Morard’s fascination with staging develops into an increasingly cinematic vision. Viewpoints, framing, light and spatial relationships guide the eye through compositions that appear suspended within a larger narrative. The figures become protagonists in situations whose beginning and end remain outside the canvas. Reality is deconstructed and then recomposed through painting, without the work losing either its chromatic force or its narrative ambiguity.

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Chapter V — The Classical Turn, 2004–2010

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From the mid-2000s, a more classical dimension emerges. The compositions become increasingly restrained, while the individual figure, gesture and psychological presence acquire greater importance. References to the history of painting coexist with Morard’s established narrative language. The theatricality remains, but it is increasingly concentrated within the figure itself, producing works that are quieter in appearance while retaining an underlying psychological tension.

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Chapter VI — The Late Transformation, 2010–2017

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During the following years, the narrative becomes progressively more internalised. Gesture, expression and the relationships between figures take precedence over the density of earlier compositions. Solitude, intimacy and psychological presence become increasingly important, while Morard continues to explore the unstable boundary between exterior reality and inner experience. The pictorial language is transformed without abandoning the questions that have accompanied the work from the beginning.

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Chapter VII — The Reawakening, 2025–present

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After a period of distance from painting, Morard returns to the canvas. These recent works do not seek to reproduce an earlier language, but reopen questions that have accompanied his practice for more than four decades: the human figure, relationships, nature, memory and the elusive boundary between reality and imagination. The paintings are often quieter and more concentrated, yet remain connected to the narrative and psychological territory developed throughout his career.

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Across these successive chapters, Morard’s work reveals not a succession of ruptures but the continuous transformation of a singular figurative language. From the narrative abundance of the 1980s to the more introspective character of the recent paintings, reality and imagination, exterior world and interiority, clarity and unease continually answer one another. Painting remains an open enigma rather than an illustration.