VOLTA, Basel

Bignia Wehrli (*1979) is based in Berlin and Sternenberg (Switzerland). She studied art at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (Germany) at the École des Beaux-Arts Paris (France) and at the China Academy of Art Hangzhou (China). Her work has been shown internationally in numerous exhibitions including in 2022 «Being Theoria: The 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art», Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou (China), «Forming Comunities: Berliner Wege», Kindl - Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin, in 2020 «Magia Naturalis», Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv (Bulgaria), in 2019 «Leichter als Luft», Altana Galerie, Dresden and in 2018 her solo show «Den Horizont in der Hand halten» at Kunsthalle Winterthur.

Bignia Wehrli produces instruments for the transformation of signs. For example, she transfers geodetic measurements into sound, contour lines into coloured yarns, starlight into cryptic drawings, and she lets the sunlight draw circles over the Rhine. In doing so, the artist sees herself less as a designer than as a "causer".

Philosopher Boyan Manchev writes about Wehrli's work: „Ultimately, the operation at stake in Wehrli’s performance-based visual artwork could be perceived as an outstanding example of a new type of artistic operation. Namely an artistic operation where the media are conceived as dynamic transformers, meant to inject autonomous agency and therefore autonomous will to an inanimate agent (or patient) thus opening a possibility for non-human actors to enter the stage of (aesthetic) production of meaning. But in this operation the substance of the human body – the subjective consistency – is not erased. (Boyan Manchev, The Theatre of Miracles, in: Bignia Wehrli, Instrumentarium, Zürich 2018).

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.