Portrait of the artist. © 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.
Barbara Ellmerer studied at the F+F Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Zurich and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).
She was Artist in Residence in New Delhi/India, at the invitation of the Pro Helvetia Cultural Foundation (2008/2009) and took part at residencies in New York City, Spain and Austria.
In 2004 Ellmerer was honoured with the UBS Cultural Foundation's Year of Work Award.
Ellmerer has continuously exhibited her work in galleries and museums. Her works have been shown at the Casa Museo Mariàtegui in Lima (Peru), the Goethe Institute in Bangkok (Thailand) and the Kunsthaus Pasquart/Centre d'Art Pasquart in Biel (Switzerland), among others.
Ellmere's participation in the exhibition (UN)CERTAIN GROUND - Contemporary Painting in Switzerland at the Kunsthaus Pasquart/Centre d 'Art Pasquart (Biel), which presented the outstanding positions of contemporary Swiss painting, underlines Ellmere's extraordinary reputation as an established and renowned Swiss artist.
Works by Barbara Ellmerer can be found in the public collections of Klinik Hirslanden, Zurich/Switzerland, the Canton of Zurich and the City of Zurich as well as the Swiss Post and Falcon Private Bank in Switzerland. Her works are also represented in the collections of the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Neuchâtel/Switzerland, the Swiss National Library, Bern/Switzerland, the Zürcher Kantonalbank and the UBS, in Switzerland.