Christine Streuli

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We are pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Christine Streuli in our gallery space in Lugano.

In the context of contemporary painting Christine Streuli holds a special position: she operates with a multifaceted sign language that draws on the most varied sources from art history to Pop culture. Using symmetry, reflection and repetition, the artist develops patterns and ornamental structures. The multilayered composition of her paintings derives not only from the superimposition of these elements, but also from the deliberate combination of different painterly approaches. Streuli is not a classical artist painting in the traditional way: she rarely paints with the brush. She often uses transfer techniques, as stencils, sprays and decalcomania. Despite this transposition and the meditative distance created, her paintings are very direct and emotional, not least because of the signs and the daring coloration.

Streuli’s works unfold their high energy levels through abstract signs of velocity, temperature, colour tone and spatiality. Quotes, repetitions and mirror effects animate the pictorial scores that are as spontaneous in appearance as they are sophisticated in their planning and execution. The artist always adheres to the thought of “both-and” instead of “either-or”, working both into the plane and in depth. She succeeds in relating vigorously agitated elements to thoroughly organised graphical quotations, so that each new work generates the impression of comprehensive simultaneity. Therefore Streuli’s paintings can also be read as statements on the prevailing global information community, which poses a challenge to every individual by its boundless availability. Streuli’s fierce paraphrases open hitherto unseen, utopian fields of experience. They cannot be reduced to specific messages and singular statements because their immediate aim is the emotional state of the viewer who, if he is willing to embark on this journey of signs and colours, senses that he is being seduced while he is being enabled to enjoy surprisingly new experiences within these pictorial worlds.

Christine Streuli was born in Bern in 1975 and she currently lives in Berlin. She studied both in Zurich and Berlin. She participated in the International Studio and Curatorial Program New York (2001/02) and was granted the Yvonne Lang-Chardonnens-Scholarship (2002) as well as a scholarship in San Francisico (2005) and she was artist-in-residence in Cairo, Egypt (2003). In 2007 Christine Streuli represented Switzerland at the 52. Venice Biennial and in 2014 she participated in the 19. Sydney Biennial. She had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Langenthal (2007) Kunsthaus Aarau (2008), Helmhaus Zurich (2009), Kunstverein Oldenburg (2009), Museum Marta Herford in Herford, Germany (2010), Kunstmuseum Luzern (2013) and Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2013).

IMAGINE:
Christine Streuli, Liegende 1, 2014 mixed media on canvas, cm 225 x 290