Cécile Wick. In the Near Distance

The Swiss artist Cécile Wick (*1954) is showing current works, mainly from the past three years, in the Cabinet of the Museum Franz Gertsch. A wanderer between the realms of photography, painting, drawing, and printmaking, she creates works on paper that sound out the possibilities of the media she uses.

The camera is Cécile Wick’s instrument of choice when it comes to generating images. It is the picture as an intrinsic construction of reality, not the photograph as a representation of reality that interests her. She uses print media to construct sensual surfaces and textures, to create a varied scale of colours, greys, and whites, as well as deep shades of black. Her exploration of the photo with its glossy surface and alleged objectivity along with her liberal application of diverse media and digital technologies result in an approximation of painting.

Cécile Wick finds her subjects on her many travels and walks. Her focus is on landscapes: mountains, islands, oceans, forests, water- and icefalls, glaciers, snow, skies, clouds, mist, stones, twigs, leaves, blossoms. In her works, the artist engages in a dialogue with the history of the landscape, both in Western and in Far Eastern art, however, without the aim of depicting specific places – the place is merely a prompt for a new picture.

These works have a poetic and contemplative appeal. The viewing experience is akin to an encounter with pristine nature, words like beauty and sublimity come to mind. Light and shadow, blossoming and wilting, the circle of life and death are the main themes. Conveyed by the expanse and emptiness, the tranquillity and timelessness expressed in these naturescapes is a sense of condensed temporality, a merging of present, past, and future.

The artist’s exhibition in the Cabinet of the Museum Franz Gertsch comprises pigment prints, gum prints, lithographs, and monotypes, most of which she created between 2024 and 2026. Ink drawings presented on a wooden construction under glass add to the display.

The artist and photographer Cécile Wick (*1954) held a professorship at the Zurich University of Arts until 2015. She studied art history and German philology in Zurich and theatre in Paris from 1974 to 1978. Since 1980 she has regularly exhibited her work both at home and abroad. While focused on photography, printmaking, and drawing, she has also realised art and building projects in public spaces. Her art is documented in an array of books and catalogues. Several grants, teaching assignments, and scholarships enabled her to study in New York, Paris, Rome, Venice, Bucharest, and Cairo for prolonged periods of time. In 2003 she was awarded the Zurich Art Prize. Cécile Wick lives and works in Zurich.

The exhibition was curated by Anna Wesle in collaboration with the artist.

The accompanying catalogue will be published by Modo Press in Frankfurt am Main.