Born in Appenzell, Switzerland in 1938, Roman Signer is a visual artist, working with sculptures and installations. He creates experiment style artworks known as ‘action sculptures’, primarily recorded by film and photography. His works are often performance based, and question themes such as cause and effect and how materials react with each other.

Roman Signer studied at the Schule für Gestaltung in Zurich, then sculpture at the Schule für Gestaltung in Lucerne, and finally at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He now lives and works in St Gallen Switzerland, having had his work exhibited around the globe since 1996.

One of Signer’s action sculptures that had a heavy influence on my work in the 3d project was ‘Gleichzeitig’, meaning ‘simultaneously’. Signer filled a room with 117 clay rectangles, much like the ones featured in my work. He laid them out in a grid formation and suspended blue heavy balls above each one, and released them simultaneously. This exploration of how materials react with one another, and the story they tell when combined is a memory of what occurred. A concept I have explored in my own work.

Signer’s humorous approach to a scientific experiment explores the remits of sculpture or in this case ‘action sculpture’. Signer is however meticulous and demonstrates in this quote “controlled destruction, not destruction for its own sake”, that he takes his craft seriously. I admire his approach, and appreciate the instinctive quality to his work.