Klaus Boesch

Klaus Boesch

Klaus Boesch (German: Klaus Bösch, born October 23, 1963) is a sand artist from Vorarlberg in Austria. He is also known as KB The Sandman.

Early life and work

Klaus Boesch was born and raised in Lustenau, Vorarlberg, Austria in 1963, the fourth of six children of Gebhard Boesch (1924-1989) who was a CEO of 11er and Destillerie Freihof companies, and who had been artillery man in the Second World War, and Charlotte Geuze (1928-2005) who was a homemaker.

After Boesch graduated BRG in Dornbirn, he was educated at Lustenau HAK/HAS Business School. From 1982-1987, he worked as an office worker at a glazier's workshop. During these years, his creative works were photography and drawing with pencil, ink, tempera and oil.

In October 1986, Werner Pieper, a media experimenter and a good friend of Klaus Boesch, brought him a sand picture from Germany. Boesch instantly recognized the endless creative possibilities of that technique. He immediately quit all other art work to concentrate on sand pictures, and in his leisure time, he started creating his version called kinetic pop art.

By February 1988, he opened his studio for sand art called Studio Blue Green (German: Atelier Blau Grün). The first works were done in two sand colors: black and white, which was the standard at that time, white marble sand, which was brought from Carrara, Italy, and natural dark grey sand, which was taken from the Rhein River. To add color, the water was tinted.

In the spring of 1988, the technique of making sand pictures was still primitive. Boesch searched for possible improvements and began to discover the secrets of sand pictures with the target, using sand with all colors of the rainbow.

By the summer of that year, he took the white marble and colored it with his own special technique similar to traditional fabric dying. It was the first break through to colorful sand pictures. Soon, five different colors of sand became the standard of his secret sand blends and were the beginning of his collection named “Rainbow Vision”.

During this time, between searches, trials, mistakes, and improvements, Boesch concluded that in the process of using natural sand from deserts and beaches, crushed minerals, artificial colored sand and glitter powders, the most crucial thing is that each color of sand must have a different weight to be separated when floating.

Regarding the water, he decided that it should be water with detergent to make the water surface smooth, plus a stabilizer to preserve and avoid algae growth.

His technique improved gradually; nowadays, the sand picture is made of two sheets of glass glued together with silicone to a sealed container. The space between them is filled with soapy water, air, and three or more kinds of sand with different densities, which can move freely. Gravity is the motor driving the flow. The medium in a sand picture is the water. In the water air is rising up and sand is falling down. When the picture is turned around, the bubbles are going up, slowing down the sand fall. Through its weight, the sand begins to drop between the air bubbles. It settles at the base, wherein, in the process of sedimentation, it separates into different weights, building structures appearing like dunes or mountains in a 3D-effect, which are affected by the shading of the different colors. Only a perfectly balanced sand blend creates a natural look. Due to the infinite possibilities of settling millions of sand grains spread on a random surface, the result is different every time the picture is turned.

Exhibitions

In 1993, Boesch exhibited at the opening of Galerie Boucherie, Uetikon on Zurich Lake in Switzerland.

In 2009, he attended the EU Commission for European Design in Japan, “Sensual perspectives” collective exhibition at Agora Gallery in New York (2011), National Pingtung Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2012), Installation ‘The Mind Spa’ at ArtPrize, Grand Rapids, Michigan (2013), Opening of the ‘KB Sand Art Gallery’ in the China Central Mall, Beijing (2014), Opening exhibition of K11 Art mall in K11 complex, Shanghai (2015).

Also, in 2015 and later in 2017, Boesch joined the collective exhibition at Beijing Design Week and Art, which was highlighted by the National Art Museum of China and the Huamao Shopping Centre, Beijing.

Gallery

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  Peace Dove, photography, 1982
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  The Eye, tempera painting, 1983
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  Eagle, hatching with ink, 1983