Jeanne Schmid – Artist Statement

I work with painting through inks, pigments, plant-based dyes, as well as ground earth and stone. Rather than using acrylic colours, I develop my tones directly from the material itself, paying particular attention to the preparation of surfaces.
The trace of the gesture settles, simple and essential.
Inspired by Zen painting and the ensō motif, I also explore brief incursions into an imaginary landscape, often mineral. Matter accompanies movement. It carries its own imprint within a certain density and feeds a reflection on the material conditions that shape my work.
In a spiral progression, a moment closes one level within the cycle of time, opening the way to new developments.
Over the past years, powders and pulps have merged with paper, bringing me back into a three-dimensional space. Volumes emerge, objects organise space.
Time and memory leave their imprint there.
My research brings me closer to nature, to what lives and transforms around us. It maintains a constant attention to natural resources, their transformations, and the fragility of the environments from which they arise.
