Christine Sefolosha
Presentation
Fiction, visions, tales ... Christine Sefolosha seems to gather on the canvas an attendance of spirits. She embodies them in such marvelous earthen textures of tar and oils, delicately adding ink or watercolor in transparent layers. Her wand brings out the human from a wizard bestiary.
Christine Sefolosha : a few landmarks
Born in Switzerland, Christine Sefolosha has lived nine years in South Africa, a stay particularly significant in her artistic career. A long artist partner of the idées d’artistes gallery, Christine Sefolosha has been enjoying a increasing success both in Europe and in the USA. In the summer 2007, a large solo exhibition took place of her works at the Halle Saint-Pierre Museum in Paris.
Biography
Solo shows
2004 : Espace culturel André-Malraux, Kremlin Bicêtre
2004 : "Phantom", galerie idées d'artistes, Paris
2003 : "Nocturnes", galerie idées d'artistes, Paris
2002 : "Solstice", Galerie Art Espace, Thono-les-Bains, France
2002 : "Outremer 3072", Manoir de la Ville de Martigny, Suisse
2001 : « New works » Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago, (USA)
2001 : « Insolites rendez-vous » Maison Visinand - Montreux (Suisse)
2000 : Musée im Lagerhaus, St Gall, rétrospective (Suisse)
2000 : Espace culturel d’Assens – Assens
1998 : Le Rez - Palais de Rumine, Lausanne
1999 et 1996 : Maison des Arts - Plexus, Chexbres (Suisse)
1996 : « Site de la création franche », Bègles (France)
1996 : Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago (USA)
1995 et 1991 : Galerie Aparté, Lausanne
1994 : Galerie « zur alten deutsche Schulen », Thun (Suisse)
1993 : Galerie l'Oeil de Boeuf, Paris
1992 et 1988 : Galerie La Luna, Vevey (Suisse)
Collective exhibitions
2004 "Eau, feu", galerie J.-J.Hofstetter, Fribourg
2004 Triennale Visarte, Musée de Pully, Lausanne, Suisse
2004 INSITA, triennale, musée national de Bratislava, Slovénie.
2004 Art & déchirure, Rouen, France
2003-2004 Nid'Art, Musée Jenisch, Vevey
2003 Collection G. Roulin, Halle St Pierres, Paris
2003 Three visions, M. Krauth, C.Sefolosha,S.Sheehy
2003 : Galerie Calvin-Morris, New York, USA
2003 : "Accrochages" Musée des Beaux Arts Lausanne, Suisse 2002 : "La collection de Geneviève Roulin", Halle Saint-Pierre, Paris
2001 : "Regards croisés", Hôtel de Ville, Yverdon-les-Bains, Suisse
2001 : "Entre noir et blanc", galerie Idées d'artistes, Paris.
2000-2001: « L'art de jouer » Musée suisse du jeu, La Tour de Peliz, Musée du Jouet, Moirans (France)
2001: « Zoofolies » La Laiterie, Centre européen de la Jeune Création, Strasbourg, France
2000 : Galerie du Château, Avenches (Suisse)
1999 : Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York (USA)
1999 : Judy Saslow Gallery, « Visions,reflections » Chicago (USA)
1998 : Exposition franco-suisse, Mairie de Divonne les Bains, (France)
1998 : Représentation des artistes veveysans, Müllheim, (Allemagne)
1997-1998 : « The End is Near », Museum of Visionary Arts, Baltimore,(USA)
1997-1998 : « Het formaat » Musée Stadtshof, Zwolle, Hollande
1997-1998 : « Civilisations imaginaires », Halle St Pierre, Paris
1997 : « European artists », Judy Saslow Gallery, Chicago, (USA)
1997 : « Libres regards sur la scène artistique veveysanne », Musée Jenisch, Vevey
1995 : « Art brut & co », Halle St Pierre, Paris
1995 : 10 Künstler aus Europa, Frankengasse gallery, Zürich, (Suisse)
1995 : Festival « Hors les normes », Praz-sur-Arly, (France)
1994 : « les Jardiniers de la Mémoire », Bègles, (France)
Public collections
Banque Crédit Suisse, Lausanne, Suisse
Site de la Création Franche, Bègles, France
Collection Nestlé, Vevey, Suisse
Fondation Lélo Fiaux, Lausanne
Musée Stadtshof, Zwolle, Holland
Gymnase de Nyon, Nyon, Suisse
Musée Jenisc,Vevey
Banque cantonale vaudoise, Lausanne
Musée des Beaux-Arts du canton de Vaud, Lausanne
Prix et bourses
2ème prix,concours d'arts visuels, Divonne-les-Bains, France (1998)
Fondation Leenaards, bourse des Arts plastiques, Lausanne v (1998-1999)
Film
« Hirsche mit Goldenen Hufen », Petra Mâussnest, Münich (1996)
Publications
« Regards sur la scène artistique veveysanne », Musée Jenisch, Vevey (1997)
« The End is near », Diletantepress, Los Angeles (1998)
« Christine Sefolosha »
Plaquette de présentation en accompagnement du livre d'Anne-Lou Steininger, illustré par Christine Sefolosha, Prix FEMS de littérature, Lausanne (1999)
“Goudron,pelure d’oignon,terre” Lausanne (1999)
“L’art de jouer” Musée suisse du Jeu-Musée du jouet, Moirans , (France, 2000)
“Zoofolies” Centre européen de la Jeune Création Strasbourg, (France, 2001)
“Outremer 3072” Lausanne (2002)
" Hanté", catalogue co- édition art&fiction, Lausanne (2003)
"Retour d'Egypte " Document, art&fiction, Lausanne (2004)
" Phantom ", éditions art&fiction, Lausanne (2005)
Œuvres dans les collections publiques
2004 Assurance-Incendie, Ville de Fribourg, Suisse
2004 Collection des Amis du Musée Jenisch, Vevey
2003 Gymnase cantonal CESSEV, La Tour de Peilz, Suisse
2003 Ville de Montreux, Suisse
2001 Fond des Arts plastiques du canton de Vaud, Lausanne
2001 Gymnase cantonal, Nyon
2000 Banque cantonale vaudoise, Lausanne, Suisse
1999 Musée Jenisch, Vevey, Suisse
1999 Collection Nestlé, siège central, Vevey, Suisse
1997 Fondation Lélo Fiaux, Lausanne
1995 Site de la Création franche, Bègles, France
1994 Collection du Crédit suisse, Lausanne
Free speech
Press
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
Theodore Roethke
from In a Dark Time, 1963
Christine Sefolosha paints shadows and spirits. In her animal imagery—fluid paintings made with mud, tar, pigment, ink, and chalk—what emerges is not a creature but its essence; not a visage, but power. Roethke’s “dark time” suggests, on a literal level, the eye’s pupil expanding wide to drink in every scrap of information as shape merges with shadow. Yet its deeper meaning alludes to a place where one comes to know oneself, a place of consciousness, a place where understanding is teased out of the depths. Scholar of myths, Joseph Campbell, put it another way: “One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.” Sefolosha’s work evokes myth, metaphor, and ancient stories, casting her as griot of her own timeless tribe. In many African tribes, such a person is viewed as far more than a storyteller, s/he is a tangible link to the past, someone alive in your midst that can touch you with stories and revelations about who you are as a person. Sefolosha’s imagery, neither narrative nor didactic, imprints upon the viewer a sensory awareness of a shared and ancient tale, silently communicating what we inherently understand to be true.
Sefolosha paints bone, fur, flesh, and spirit enmeshed in the same plane. Bird is mammal is reptile is ghost. A sense of a distant, lost time saturates the images—yet any tangible reference to such is utterly absent and unnamed. In her symbolic language, shapes become luminous apparitions, whispering something personal and private. Hence, they are intimate, a relationship earned, transmitted through closeness, softness, a gift of being open to what is offered rather than moving quickly onward. From murky vapors and sticky smudges a distinctly feminine strength emerges, shrewd and hesitant, fragile yet ready to bloom, rise, and prevail. A feeble legged lupine being extracts itself from the picture plane, born from the depths, fed by knowledge. A bird crawls out of the same creature’s gut, a white flash of spirit not defined by a singular characteristic but by an attitude of determination. Fur is feather is flesh is fluid. Her animals are what they need to be, as amorphous as a mood, as changeable as weather. Sefolosha lays the field where emergence is possible.
Sefolosha’s images are not studied renderings of something immutable and understood. They feel more like communications, messages sent to the artist from another plane, a mystic view beyond the apparent. Her innate connection to the animal world is apparent. Sefolosha recalls her childhood on the lakeside of Montreux, Switzerland, “It was a lonely time full of dreams and stories invented and told to oneself as one would when one has no siblings and the children in the street are forbidden. . . ants become close friends, and snails too—even leaves and branches are welcoming.” Her childhood stands in stark contrast to time spent in South Africa as a young adult in the mid-1970s. Having married into a family deeply rooted in the belief system of apartheid, she was entrenched in the white sectors of the region, distanced from the rich cultural fusions beyond. Yet Sefolosha was drawn to what she refers to as “the other side.” This other side, where blacks, whites, so-called marginals—artists among them—intermingled, seemed “mysterious and dangerous, full of hardships but so alive!” She embraced living and drawing in these places, with these people, absorbing their music, poetry, culture, and aesthetic, noting that this period of learning had served as her school.
Sefolosha’s images bear the mark of her years in South Africa, yet they are uniquely hers. After first leaving, expelled at the hands of recurring upheavals, she returned to her native home. Her images from this time unmistakably—though never overtly—embodied the impact of this brutal energy. Reflecting on this time of her life she says, “The images, emotions, memories of those years are still very palpable. South Africa left a deep trace and I would almost say I found the black in me over there.”
When the actions of humans are inexplicable, the company of animals is, for many, restorative. While the animal kingdom has its own brutal realities, it lives by reason, rule, instinct, and truth. The eyes of an animal can remind you what is true. In the expanded view of human history, seeking kinship with and “communicating” with animals is nothing new. A Netsilik Eskimo song relates a view that the species were all, long ago, interchangeable. “In the very earliest time, when both people and animals lived on earth . . . there was no difference. All spoke the same language.” Over time, many humans collectively “forgot” that watching and listening was the path to communication. In contemporary urban society, people are delighted and surprised by stories of humans who can communicate with animals; others know it has always been possible. It is likely that, just a few centuries back, as divergent cultural groups encountered one another, those who spoke in factual terms thought that the idea that one could converse with animals was—and by extension those who had it—crazy. Those that had a far broader definition of “talk” thought the other men pitiful.
For those of us who made friends with snails or some such helpless creature as children, a future of gleaning insight and wisdom from animals takes root. Peoples whose daily existence depends on the natural world respect life in all forms, for even as they must take life to continue life, there is an acknowledgement of the spirit in everything. Such complexities require an ongoing contemplative relationship, and many tribal groups use a particular animal’s traits to reference that animal group’s greater spirit from generation to generation. These characteristics are often so integral to a particular animal that diverse groups regard them in similar fashion. For Sefolosha, witness to cruelty and oppression, the bird plays a prominent role in her personal symbologies. This familiar of sorts, a loyal and tenacious (if symbolic) companion, commonly connotes freedom from the bonds of earth above all else, yet also represents great vision and the ability to move between space and time. Sefolosha’s images are suffused with hope. Reaching deep into the depths of inky pools, she finds not the buzzard and hyena, but the caribou and the crane.
Leslie Umberger
