VOLTA, Basel

Collecting, tracing, measuring and inventing -- these actions in Bignia Wehrli’s artistic practice -- are implanted in the dynamics of nature in a very subtle way. In the process of creation, she often appears as a collaborator with nature. For her artistic translations, Wehrli often invents new techniques and instruments that act as an extension of the artist’s hand. The observation and translation of spatial movement and traces have always been a major concern in Wehrli’s work. For the work „wind catcher“ (2021) the artist attached two pinhole cameras to the vanes of an anemoscope (wind direction indicator) photographing the approaching twilight on the hill of Allenwinden on seven different evenings. The wind determined the viewing directions of the back-to-back positioned cameras; its fine fluctuations or sudden changes in direction guided the cameras, capturing the moving horizon in images.

Bignia Wehrli, born in Uster, Switzerland, is an artist based in Berlin and Sternenberg (Switzerland). She studied art at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts at the École des Beaux-Arts Paris and at the China Academy of Art Hangzhou (China). Bignia Wehrli’s work translates actions and spatial movements into signs using specially developed instruments. Her work has been shown internationally in exhibitions including in 2024 her solo show «A way, any way», Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, in 2022 «Being Theoria: The 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art», Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, «Forming Comunities: Berliner Wege», Kindl - Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin, in 2020 «Magia Naturalis», Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv (Bulgaria) and in 2018 her solo show «Den Horizont in der Hand halten» at Kunsthalle Winterthur.

收集、追踪、测量与发明，这些一直延续在宾雅艺术实践中的动作，以细微的方式，植入在自然的动态中。在创作中，她常常作为自然的协作者出现。在艺术转译的过程中，她经常发明一些自制的仪器和新的技术，作为艺术家之手的延伸。对痕迹的观察和存留，一直是宾雅创作中的重要关注。在作品“捕风”（2021）中，艺术家将两台针孔相机安装在风向仪的风叶上，在七个不同的傍晚拍摄了艾伦温登山丘上临近夜晚的黄昏。风决定了背对背安装的相机的视角；其微小的波动或者突然的风向变化引导着相机，捕捉下了动态中的地平线影像。

宾雅，出生于瑞士，现生活和工作于柏林和星星山（瑞士）。她曾在德累斯顿美术学院（德国）、巴黎国立高等美术学院（法国）和中国美术学院（中国）学习艺术。通过自制的仪器，她的创作将行动和空间的运动转化成符号。她的作品已经在国际上多次展出，包括2024 年在杭州清影艺术空间的个展“一条路，任何一条路”，2022年在浙江美术馆的第四届杭州纤维艺术三年展“缓存在”，2022年在柏林Kindl当代艺术中心举办的“道法柏林，而游于外”，2020年在普罗夫迪夫（保加利亚）Sariev画廊的“Magia Naturalis”，2018年在温特图尔艺术馆举办的个展“持在手上的地平线”。

Hyunae Kang (*1959, Chungcheongnam-do) is a Korean sculptor and painter. She grew up in a rural village untouched by South Korea’s industrialisation during the 1960s and 1970s, which instilled in her a deep connection to the natural world, a recurring theme in her works. At the age of eighteen, she moved to Seoul, where she earned her BFA and MFA in sculpture from Ewha Womans University.

In 1991, Hyunae’s artistic career took off with her first solo exhibition at Seoul’s Gallery Hyundai. Her sculptures explored the tension between geometric modernism and organic abstraction, blending pure forms with natural irregularities. Kang’s preferred materials, including bronze, wood, marble, and obsidian, reflected her fascination with material diversity to attain a visual balance.

Two years later, she moved to the United States and transitioned to painting. Her art embraced vibrant colours, influenced by American artists like Rothko, Motherwell, and Frankenthaler. Inspired by nature, she creates large, layered, and abstract artworks characterised by vibrant colours and repetitive, thick, and expressive brushstrokes, giving the surface a tactile texture that is both reflective and captivating.

Hyunae exhibited her works in various American venues, marking a significant turning point in her artistic journey. It was in 1995 that she gained recognition, when the Seoul Art Museum acquired one of her works for their permanent collection. Since then, her works have been exhibited worldwide and have found a place in private collections and public institutions. In 2022, her first career retrospective, “Dialogues with the Sacred”, was held at the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim, California. In this exhibition, Kang, as a devout Christian, creates an open connection between the divinity of nature and human expression.

Olga Golos is a conceptual visual artist mainly focused on series of sculptures and installations often in reference to boundary and transition experiences, including the border of human-shaped and natural landscape. Olga is interested in what constitutes personality - how a person can simultaneously be an individual and part of a collective. She is captivated by the notion that each individual encompasses a multitude of influences, experiences, and perspectives, simultaneously existing as an individual entity and an integral part of a larger collective. Golos mostly works serially or in several parts, her works are a study in modularity and the relationships that a repeated form can create. For her, materials are deceptive. Glass masquerades as ceramic, metal imagines itself to be paper and plaster becomes whatever it wants to be. Her interest in materials is not limited to their aesthetical qualities; it is also revealed in investigation of working methods and historical imprint. That is also why, touching on topics like sensitivity or vulnerability, she often employs heavy materials like steel that require physically demanding processes to be shaped.

Perbal/Bélibaste share a home, family, studio and artistic work. In recent years, they have created a collection of visual artwork with a special individuality. Personal memories, their shared history and their own impression of the current times form the most important starting point. The duo tells its story from subtleties and deliberately chooses the path of stillness. Hierarchy has no place in their collaboration. Whose idea it was initially is of no importance. Ideas mix in a symbiotic way and create a fascinating dynamic.

The artist duo cannot easily be classified in a tradition or art movement; they probably express themselves best in the figurative, although they may occasionally produce abstract works. Their work looks fragile and is usually made of thread in combination with wood, stone, metal or other natural materials.

Yafeng Duan (*1973, Hebei, China) grew up in Baoding and currently resides in Berlin. In 1998, she already presented her first solo exhibition at the Lianchi Museum in Boading. The following year, she began studying traditional ink painting at the Central Academy for Fine Arts in Beijing (CAFA), until 2001. In 2004, she moved to Alfter, in Germany, where she studied Painting at Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences, for a year. A pivotal period in her artistic career was the six years of studying Freie Kunst at Bauhaus University in Weimar, graduating in 2011, while concurrently attending Robert Lucander’s classes at the Berlin University of the Arts.

An important role in the formation of Yafeng Duan as an artist was played by her father, Duan Xinran, a prominent figure in traditional Chinese ink painting, who played a crucial role in shaping her artistic perspective. Yafeng Duan's art is imbued with dualities such as light and density, thin and broad lines, floating colors and solid surfaces. This interplay gives life to abstract paintings, reminiscent of Kandinsky, establishing a dialogue between East and West. It is a unique approach enriched by the Chinese concept of Qi, which permeates her works as a meditative technique and a tool to expand pictorial spaces.