Saype paints two giant children-drawing-nature frescoes on Swiss Alps slopes, closing a five-year chapter

A five-year alpine story reaches its final chapter

For the fifth consecutive summer, Franco-Swiss land-art artist Saype (Guillaume Legros) has turned the high pastures above Villars-sur-Ollon into a monumental canvas. The village, perched at 1,258 metres in the canton of Vaud, is home to roughly the same number of residents. Arriving on 8 July, Saype selected two new sites in the Bretaye area, different from those of previous years, and painted two giant ephemeral frescoes directly onto the grass. The diptych, titled "A portée de ciel" (Within Reach of the Sky), depicts two children sitting on the meadow and drawing trees, clouds, the sun and the moon into the landscape. According to the artist, the works close a first chapter of a story that has occupied him for half a decade.

For years, the children in my works learned from and were inspired by nature. Today, they draw it.

The two pieces are sited on separate slopes. One, covering 4,600 square metres, is best viewed from the Roc d'Orsay lookout; the second, spanning 6,300 square metres, reveals itself from the Golf restaurant. Together they cover nearly 11,000 square metres of alpine meadow, visible to hikers traversing the heights above the village. On his website, Saype describes the installation as transforming the mountain slope into a canvas, harmonising with the natural surroundings while highlighting their beauty and fragility.

Ephemeral by design

Saype's technique relies on a paint he mixes himself from chalk and charcoal, applied directly onto the grass with no synthetic fixatives. The images are designed to fade gradually under the effects of wind, rain and regrowth, leaving no permanent trace on the landscape. Their lifespan is entirely weather-dependent: the artist expects them to remain legible until early August, though the Roc d'Orsay fresco has already suffered damage from storms at the end of last week. This built-in impermanence is central to the work's message about the fragility of the natural environment.

Children as gentle messengers

Saype has long used the figure of the child to address weighty themes. He told Keystone-SDA that children can tackle "very profound" subjects, particularly environmental questions, "with gentleness and poetry". In the new diptych, the children are no longer passive learners but active creators, drawing the world around them. One child has a rucksack, paper and pencils nearby; beside the other, a stack of books appears to rise into the air. The shift from learning to drawing marks, in the artist's words, the end of a five-year narrative arc that began with children observing nature and now sees them shaping it.

An indoor complement

For the first time, the open-air installation is accompanied by an indoor exhibition. Around forty of Saype's works are on display at the Villars Palace hotel, in a show running until 26 July. The exhibition offers visitors a chance to see the artist's smaller-scale pieces and studies, providing context for the monumental grass paintings outside. The hotel's exhibition hall hosts the collection, which spans various phases of his career.

A growing body of land art

Saype has previously created large-scale grass frescoes in other Swiss locations. In 2024, he painted a giant ground image in Zurich's Irchelpark to honour the work of SOS Méditerranée, the sea rescue organisation that aids migrants in distress in the Mediterranean. His works have also appeared in cities around the world, always using the same biodegradable technique. The Villars-sur-Ollon series, however, is his longest-running site-specific project, and its conclusion marks a turning point in his practice. The artist has not yet indicated what will follow this closed chapter.