Silvia Bächli

SILVIA BÄCHLI (Baden, Switzerland, 1956).
"Linien 5", 2002.
Gouache on paper.
Provenance: Galerie Vera Munro. Acquired in 2005.
Measurements: 200 x 150 cm; 211 x 162 cm (frame)
Silvie Bächli's language is characterised by the influence of contemporary graphics and is based on the concept of the line, as can be seen in the gouache that is now on offer.
Swiss painter and photographer. Trained at the École d'arts appliqués in Basel in the second half of the 1970s, and later at the École supérieure d'art visuel in Geneva, Silvia Bächli was forever marked by the hive of artistic activity that surrounded the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Kunsthalle Basel between the late 1970s and the 1980s. In 1981 he helped create the nomadic and alternative project space Filiale Basel. In her drawings, Bächli explores the very edges of the world, trying to understand how everything works and to establish, according to this exploration, a certain order. She does not seem to be interested in showing the whole, but in the details, the interstices or fragments, the reflection or shadow of things. She uses herself, her body, her life, her history and her environment as a starting point. She works mainly on white sheets of paper, with India ink, charcoal, oil pastels and gouache, in a palette ranging from pale grey to deep black.