Bernard Aubertin studied painting in Paris. He created figurative works and dealt with Cubism and Futurism. Yves Klein encouraged him to work with just one colour. Aubertin conzentrated on the colour red as an expression of fire, to created spaces of colour and light. In the 1960s he participated in ZERO demonstrations and created monochrome nail pictures.
Aubertin created the first fire pictures in 1961. He attached serial sequences of matches to paintings and then lit them. In 1977 he was invited to participate in documenta 6 in Kassel. In the 1980s he began the series of fire signs, small rectangular burned wood panels with traces of red colour on a black charred ground. In the early 1990s the artist moved to Reutlingen, Germany. By limiting himself to just one colour and his use of fire, Aubertin was a typical Zero artist.
