Barbara Ellmerer

When Barbara Ellmerer (born 1956 in Meiringen/Switzerland) has decided to apply a pastose layer of paint, her paintings were imbued with tactile qualities. The artist uses the colours’ energetic values intelligently, contrasting stark tones and harsh contours to produce strong visual friction. 

 

Ellmerer’s art combines sensual painting and intellectual exploration of nature; it merges a delight in colour with a scientific quest for knowledge. 

 

The Zurich-based artist works with painterly and graphic means on invisible forces. Based on plant structures and scientific diagrams, Ellmerer has been working with physical and biological processes since 2011. She is interested in everything that is small: cells, particles and atoms and scrutinises the medium of painting in this context. 

 

The energetic intensity of Elmerer’s images chiefly results from the artist’s zooming in on her subject matter. Her eye is like a microscope, distorting and alienating what we see, penetrating the surface to focus on the vitality beneath. Exploring the boundary between figuration and pure colouristic gesture, her paintings refuse to satisfy a human need to recognise, name and control the environment. Ellmerer’s paintings consistently undercut our expectations, forcing us to question our perception. So, her works underscore how strange nature can be to us.