Patricia Bucher
We see more with our minds than our eyes.
Patricia Bucher is interested in the layered interpretation of signs, symbols, and pictorial forms. Unfolding like a piece of postmodern architecture, her drawings, watercolours, sculptures, and kilims (woven carpets), create non-hierarchical worlds and situations, delineating conventional ideas of subject and object. Each work playfully questions the notions which made the human-led subject the only relevant perspective. In the background of Bucher’s practice is rigorous research into semiotics and the relationship between perception, reality, rationality and understanding. We approach the world with concepts and everything we see is filtered through that lens. However, something can happen that makes us shift our lens and suddenly, we are looking at the same object, with a different perspective. The signs and symbols of everyday life, for example traffic signs, have given us the rules of the road, the rules through which we perceive our reality. Yet, those perceptions can shift so quickly and ambiguously, and it is in that moment that Bucher catches us. Her intricate works carefully denote that moment when perception can shift, usually unobserved, leaping across demarcations into a world where we see more with our minds than our eyes.
Many of my questions revolve around the political nature of demarcation and the question of what it aims at, what consequences it entails, who it protects and who it excludes.
Inhabited by multiform characters (inhabitants, pets, wild animals, robot vacuum cleaners), Bucher’s scenes are filled with anticipation, mystery, irony and curiosity. A grey ground, a grey-er sky, some weather perhaps, the scene plays out against this backdrop, along a single line marking the horizon; a two-dimensional stage evocative of early 2000s platform games. A prehistoric creature peers over a wall, a smaller one peers under. Then, in cahoots, the smaller tops the other to get a better look, but what are they looking at? The other side of the wall is identical. Meanwhile, a Kandinsky-esque geometry is apparently painting another Kandinsky-esque geometry, giving personhood to one over the other. Here we seem to have an object observing another object or an object taking the role of subject, a playful nod to Bucher’s inspiration and Kandinsky’s distillation of images as signs. Colour is used only when necessary and to add to the incongruity; the sky is red, the tree is yellow and yet the monkey still brown. Each composition consists of symbols and signs that Patricia Bucher develops from her own system of forms. For this, she studied the functions of sign, form and writing systems from different cultures and eras, reminiscent of the first denoted symbols, used as language-building tools by early man in the caves. Bucher presents us with myriad ways to use our memories, imaginations, and perception to release our own interpretation of her works.
Text by Constance Chester
Each composition consists of symbols and signs that Patricia Bucher develops from her own system of forms. For this, she studied the functions of sign, form and writing systems from different cultures and eras.
Biography Patricia Bucher
born 1976 in Aarau, Switzerland
Education
2019-2020 Master in Fine Arts at the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW) Basel, Switzerland
1997-2001 Diploma with distinction FH in Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), Switzerland
1999-2000 Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts, New York
1996-1997 Guest student at the the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), Switzerland
1995-1996 Art and design preliminary course at the Schule für Gestaltung Aargau, Switzerland
1992-1995 Diploma in Business at the Handelsdiplomschule Aarau, Switzerland
Exhibitions (selection)
2023
(yet untitled), 10qm, Cologne, Germany (SOLO) (upcoming)
salon du printemps, Sam Scherrer Contemporary, Zurich, Switzerland (upcoming)
2022
Patterns And Order, Villa Bernasconi, Lancy, Switzerland
Eyes Need Us To See, Dienstgebäude, Zurich, Switzerland
Zukunftserinnerungen, Galerie im Gluri Suter Huus, Wettingen, Switzerland
2021
As Thick As Thieves, Kunsthalle Arbon, Switzerland (SOLO)
rama lama ding dong, FORMA - Art contemporain & cabinet d'expertise, Lausanne, Switzerland (SOLO)
Ich wollte nie eine Konstruktivistin sein, Kunstverein Pforzheim, Germany
Auswahl 21, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland
Zentral!, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland
2020
Features, Stadtmuseum Berlin, Germany
Life, Love, Justice - Next Generation, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland
of color, Helmhaus, Zurich, Switzerland
2019
earthquake, aeroplane, eye of a hurricane, FORMA - Art contemporain & cabinet d'expertise, Lausanne, Switzerland (SOLO)
2018
don't answer the door, Kunsthaus Grenchen, Grenchen, Switzerland (SOLO)
Residencies & grants
2022
COVID work scholarship, City of Zurich, Switzerland
2021
Artist grant, Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin, Germany
Work scholarship, Aargauer Kuratorium, Aarau, Switzerland
COVID work scholarship, City of Zurich, Switzerland
2020
Freiraum scholarship, Canton of Zurich Culture Office, Zurich, Switzerland
2018
Work grant visual arts, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
2016
Work grant, Aargauer Kuratorium, Aarau, Switzerland
Grant, UBS Cultural Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland
2015
Travel grant Turkey/Iran, Aargauer Kuratorium, Aarau, Switzerland
2014
Work grant visual arts, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
2013
Work grant, Aargauer Kuratorium, Aarau, Switzerland
2011
Manor Art Prize, Manor Foundation, Lucerne, Switzerland
2010
Freiraum-Stipendium Zurich, Studio für Wort und Wirkung, Zurich, Switzerland
2008
Hans-Trudel Art Prize, Hans-Trudel Foundation, Baden, Switzerland
2005
Jury Prize, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland
2002
Exhibition Prize, Art Society, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland
2001
Studio scholarship Paris, Aargauer Kuratorium, Aarau, Switzerland
Promotion Award, Zurich University of the Arts (diploma with distinction), Zurich, Switzerland
www.patriciabucher.de
Works by Patricia Bucher
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2018 / Watercolor and lino printing ink on paper / 23.3 x 27.3 cm / 9.2 x 10.7 in (framed)
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2018 / Watercolor and lino printing ink on paper / 23.3 x 27.3 cm / 9.2 x 10.7 in (framed)
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2018 / Wool, dyed, woven / 223 x 149 cm / 87.8 x 58.7 in
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2018 / Watercolor and lino printing ink on paper / 23.3 x 27.3 cm / 9.2 x 10.7 in (framed)
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2018 / Wool, dyed, woven / 227 x 160 cm / 89.4 x 63.0 in
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2018 / Wool, dyed, woven / 222 x 150 cm / 87.4 x 59.1 in
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2019 / Collage; serigraphed paper, partly handprinted with acrylic paint / 97 x 67 cm / 38.2 x 26.4 in (framed)
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2019 / Watercolor and lino printing ink on paper / 22.8 x 27.8 cm / 9.0 x 10.9 in (framed)
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2019 / Watercolor on paper / 22.8 x 27.8 cm / 9.0 x 10.9 in (framed)
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2019 / Watercolor on paper / 22.8 x 27.8 cm / 9.0 x 10.9 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor on paper / 22.7 x 27.8 cm / 8.9 x 10.9 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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2021 / Watercolor and charcoal on paper / 23.9 x 20.4 cm / 9.4 x 8.0 in (framed)
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Stall, Baum
2021 / Wood, metal chain, pigeon repellent spikes, padlock, two bird cages, duck feathers / Dimensions variable
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2022 / Wood, metal plates, basement compartment doors, concrete pillar, rabbit fence, barbed wire, cat door, padlock, dog carrier, straw Installation / Dimensions variable
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2021 / Wood, partially plastered with clay plaster with straw content, metal chain, lock, toilet rosette, socket / 285 x 240 x 165 cm / 112.2 x 94.5 x 65.0 in
Cahier d'Artiste by Patricia Bucher
How birds can keep you from marrying the wrong person, 260 x 260 mm, 64 pages (published by Jungle Books)
Patricia Bucher holds degrees in fine arts from Zurich School of Art and Design (today’s Zurich University of the Arts) and the School of Visual Arts New York City. She has been working as a professional artist since 2001 and earned a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland in Basel in 2020. In recent years, Patricia has created an extensive body of work that explores fundamental semiological questions. She works with different materials and techniques such as installation, architecture, object, collage, painting, drawing or texts. Patricia’s work explores the definition, legibility and constructedness of signs and forms rooted in our collective memory. Her visual language refers to writing systems, pictograms and symbols ranging from hieroglyphics to video games.
Patricia Bucher’s Cahier, entitled “How birds can keep you from marrying the wrong person”, presents her unique visual language. The book showcases her sculptures, which consist of simple, mostly orthogonal contours and sometimes contain an oblique at a 45-degree angle. Her chosen proportions provoke, breaking accepted architectural norms and taking them ad absurdum. The publication plays with the disrupted perception of proportions in her work. It consists of three parts: Part I presents the sculptures that Patricia Bucher has shown at exhibits in recent years. Part II includes a text by Claudius Fruehauf, the index and the imprint. Part III is dedicated to Patricia Bucher’s drawings.
The publication “How birds can keep you from marrying the wrong person” offers a fascinating glimpse into Bucher’s works, inviting readers to grapple with the unconventional dimensions of her sculptures and drawings.
Claudius Fruehauf (Lausanne) wrote the text for Patricia Bucher’s Cahier. He holds a degree in Architecture from ETH Zurich (2007). In 2008, he founded the architectural firm FHV Architekten – FRUEHAUF, HENRY & VILADOMS – in Lausanne. Previously, he worked as an assistant scenographer for Herzog & de Meuron in 2005–2006 and 2009–2010. In 2008, he worked as an architect for architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron in Basel.
Patricia Bucher is part of the Cahiers d'Artistes selection. Eight artists were chosen by a jury to realize an artist book with the support of Pro Helvetia. Their artistic practice is presented online on TheArtists.net.
With the Cahiers d'Artistes, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia enables artists from Switzerland to have their first publication and offers art professionals and the interested public a window to current trends in the Swiss art scene. For the first time, the Cahiers d'Artistes are not pure monographs, but artist books designed and produced by graphic designers Samuel Bänziger, Rosario Florio, and Larissa Kasper (Jungle Books) in close collaboration with the artists. More about the Cahiers d'Artistes on Pro Helvetia's website.
