In the Philippines and the Far East, where Banziger had regularly spent time during his business career, he hoped to find the necessary space and freedom of spirit to provide him with the inspiration to lead the life of an artist. At this point in his life, the twenty nine year old dove into auto didactic study with enthusiasm and determination, holding as his motto, ‘learning by doing’. Once he arrived in Manila, however, his life became marked by a self imposed solitude and meager circumstances. Soon he was forced to support himself through one of his earliest occupations; selling clothes. Despite the hardship of having a day job and painting at night, and through this lifestyle, a ‘virtual’ isolation, it was during this period that Banziger discovered his capacity to express himself artistically, and to develop his own painterly language. During this beginning period, he was in great measure stimulated by the exotic Bohemian atmosphere of Manila at that time.

In 1977, with four hundred dollars in his pocket, Nolde Banziger landed in San Francisco. But what he found there in terms of creative and artistic impulses, and people, did not inspire him. It is not surprising, because what he found in the pulsating, chaotic atmosphere of Manila, a fascinating path of duality between human beings and materials, was sharply contrasted by the coolness of San Francisco, which did nothing to stimulate his creative vibrations.

Therefore, his next destination had to be a city with a more complex ethnic mix: Los Angeles. There, in its alluring surroundings, he hoped his artistic ambitions would stand a better chance of being fulfilled. But by the time he made it to this big city, he was completely broke. Instead of starting to paint, he had to make a living as a truck driver and mover to pay for rent, food, and painting materials. Only after dark was he able to pursue his artistic inclination. With iron discipline, he worked day after day developing his skills, as he does to this day. It was during this phase of hard work, and great inspiration, that Banziger produced a myriad of paintings depicting the colorful opulence and the androgynous spirit of Hollywood that was alive at the end of the seventies. He characterizes his work from that time as his ‘surrealistic’ period.

Surrealistic themes and techniques of painting created by the masters of that genre had begun to influence his work towards the end of his stay in Los Angeles. He began to feel the urge to expand his artistic vocabulary, and soon his fascination with photo and hyper realism began to fully absorb him. With this turning point came a necessary change of location, to New York, the cultural melting pot that was to be his next stop on the arduous path to becoming a respected artist.

Experts and critics recognized that these new works contained a strong influence of abstract elements within the hyper realism. Banziger;

    “The precise definition of my then used style is not easy to describe. I had the desire to compose something more than just ‘pretty surfaces’ and reach beyond just pure photo realism.”

As a result, he started to pursue a style encompassing photo illusions, thought provoking juxtapositions, images of people mirrored in the glass facades of the high rises of metropolitan New York. Continues Banziger;

    “Big cities are like human beehives. Here, there is a magnetic allure and fascination, containing complex socio economic currents, that give New Yorkers a narcissistic self image. They view themselves as masters of time and destiny, recognizing themselves and their attitudes in the ‘mirrors’ of the glass walls of modern skyscrapers. I tried to capture this haughty attitude and somewhat arrogant stance throughout this whole series of paintings.”

The result of these efforts was a resounding success at West Broadway. Banziger’s reputation grew through the acclaim received in both the American and international press, including a program on NBC television showcasing his work, and a lengthy article in the New York Times.

The dominant role which New York played for many years in Banziger’s life retreated somewhat in 1987, when he resumed his regular trips to Europe with a strong preference for Italy. He kept his studio at Union Square, but questions began to creep into his mind, about what made Americans feel so grand when confronting the rest of the world.

     “The vitality and violence that was America attracted me and disgusted me at the same time. These ambivalent feelings are best expressed in a painting I did of the Statue of Liberty. The rose colored statue hovers above the clouds highlighting the irony of her message…that this is everyone’s ‘promised land’.”

Nolde Banziger’s photo realistic paintings, whimsically juxtaposing images of antiquity with those of the modern world, had been successfully exhibited around the world, and would have entitled the artist to take a well deserved break. But nothing was further from his mind than to rest on his laurels, instead, in 1990, he took a second residence in Pietrasanta, and once again was in search of a new artistic vocabulary. Two dimensions had, up until now, provided enough space to express his emotions and fantasies. But the third dimension was calling. He felt sculpture was an important medium to add more depth to what he was doing, and in this way, began a new adventure.

He had earned the attention of the United States Christopher Columbus Quincentennary Commission through his thought provoking renditions of images from different centuries, and was chosen as the official artist for the event they were planning. Based on his large canvasses honoring Columbus’s discovery of the New World, the jubilee became a catastrophe of political controversy through the quarreling of its organizers, and this threw Banziger into a vortex of self doubt about his competence and direction as an artist. From this uncertainty emerged a desire to master three dimensional works.

In the studios, where Michelangelo often spent time during his frequent trips to Carrara, Banziger was inspired by what he saw. The powerful and yet graceful ‘life’ which Michelangelo was able to pull from these blocks of cold white stone impressed him deeply, and convinced him, for the time being, to abandon painting. He focused all his attention on mastering the third dimension. Once again, he was upon the path of auto didactic training into new artistic territory. A friend taught him how to weld, but right away he saw that iron and steel, heavy and coarse materials, were not his ‘thing’. His material of choice was aluminum, combined with marble and granite. The foundation for his new constructions was the stone, upon which he built an aluminum frame. Onto this he welded perforated sheets of colored aluminum, snarling and intertwining them with the frames themselves. The results were whimsical, elegant sculptures, breaking the flow of light into a myriad of glimmering rays. The light heartedness of these works earned him the recognition of critics and much impressed his collectors. After a few years of very intense work, however, he returned to painting, bringing with him a new knowledge of three dimensionality, which became an integral part of his next series of paintings. These new works incorporated metal artifacts into the surfaces of the canvasses, giving them more depth. The next evolution in his work came from the faded frescoed walls found everywhere in Tuscany. The colors of the hills and the ambience surrounding his studio gave a new vibrancy to his work that hadn’t been there before. These ‘quadros’ are done in splendid monochromatic colors, and have the jewel like texture of aged Italian frescoes, punctuated by a bit of dry leaf, or an insect, that has floated onto the canvass before it was completely dry.

Still further on, the artist gives us a glimpse into his new world by painting scenes onto these frescoed surfaces, adding a dimension which makes us feel these images are frozen in time. What we see are his personal life, his passion for history; his private moments, thoughts, feelings and conversations, which he shares with us through his work. Executed in a classical Banziger style, these elements introduce tension into the otherwise peaceful frescoed surfaces.

Tuscany and New York will always play the leading roles in Nolde Banziger’s personal and artistic life.

Under the patronage of New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Cowparade was celebrated in the streets of the city from June 2000 until September of the same year. More than five hundred painted and creatively altered life size cows made of fiberglas were exhibited, and Nolde Banziger participated with five creations. These were placed on Park Avenue between 50^th and 57^th streets. The uniqueness of his cows lay in their colorful, playful, and at the same time cynical execution, from ‘gold pooping’ to paper money chewing or laundering cows, making an ironic statement about Switzerland’s fame as an illegal banking haven.

During his travels in the year 2000 trough various states and locations in the US, Banziger discovered the alluring beauty of diners. These are an unique American icon, originally built out of discarded railway dining cars, and first used as restaurants during the Great Depression. In the 1940's and 1950's, well known manufacturers like Kullman and Paramount started to build them with the famous stainless steel look, and called them "Luncheonettes". From the moment of their inception the concept was a success; easy and delightful fast food at reasonable prices in a nostalgic atmosphere. Soon they became the favorite meeting place for America's youth, where they could socialize, listen to the latest music coming out of a jukebox, and savor hamburgers, milkshakes and ice cream sundaes. From the late 80's trough the 90's, these kinds of diners enjoyed a revival, which Banziger captures in an impressive body of work.

During the winter of 2003 until March of 2004, Banziger spent nearly four months on the island of Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. During that period, his thoughts meandered around the idea that important decisions and destinies are often discussed and decided during a meal. Didn’t T.E. Lawrence once say that,”… he and Churchill had together decided the fate of the entire Middle East over a great meal? “ This quote was the starting point for his inspiration of the entire series. Staged on a dinner table are absurd scenes of leadership and politics, portrayed by antique toys of various sizes and materials with a touch of whimsy.