Bio

Jeanne Schmid trained at the Geneva Art School HEAD (ESAV) and began her career as a sculptor.
For ten years, her artistic research focused on the line as a tool for defining space. Exhibitions, competitions and residencies led her across Europe, until an unexpected event forced her to profoundly transform her artistic practice.

After several years of research, she redefined her artistic vocabulary and expanded her practice to photography, video and sound. In 2012, her video installation États d’âmes was awarded a grant from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture.

This multimedia practice now supports a pictorial and sculptural research centred on natural materials, their transformations, and the relationships they maintain with the territories from which they originate. She regularly exhibits her work in various regions of Switzerland.

Since 2012, Jeanne Schmid has taken part in several residencies, exhibitions and artistic projects across Europe. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Musée de Montreux as well as in several private collections.

A Life in Three Chapters

My journey could be divided into three chapters. Looking back, the first is characterised by an intense period of artistic research and by the active presentation of my work following my years of study at HEAD (ESAV) in Geneva.

The first chapter: space and movement

Everything revolves around space. I draw it with metal wire in very airy sculptures, or explore it through installations that are often quite acrobatic. I travel, discover, exhibit my work in solo and group shows, in Switzerland and abroad. I receive grants and awards, and am invited to artist residencies … My artistic practice is my absolute priority.

A turning point

The second chapter lasts a long time. It begins with a car accident that abruptly forces me to reconsider several of my life choices.

Physically affected, I can no longer use my body as an instrument with which to question the laws of balance.

I am alive, and my body is healing, but I have to reinvent a vocabulary with which to speak about my presence in space and time. I struggle to redefine myself within the new constraints imposed on me. I draw to feel alive, but this only partly nourishes my relationship with the world. Then, in 2008, I organise the exhibition l’Art chez les Voisins, held in the shared spaces of an apartment building in Geneva, bringing together contributions from both the residents and the artists who take part.

Little by little, I come to see this project as an artistic achievement in its own right, and I begin to feel alive again.

Finding a new vocabulary

I start exploring the possibilities of digital image processing. I rediscover the desire to question my surroundings and, drawing on the technical foundations I acquired during my studies, slowly begin to make the new media available to me my own.

I am no longer sculpting space, nor dancing with materials. But video, which I like to think of as working with images as if they were paintings, allows me to embrace movement, to find my place in space, and to work with sound.

Photography becomes a sketchbook before becoming digital printmaking. My often hybrid images gradually become ready to be shown as I free myself from the technical constraints that have held me back.

Supported by drawing, which quietly reclaims its role as the driving force behind my research, I rediscover the pleasure of telling my stories and inviting people into my world. My vocabulary is taking shape again, many stories are waiting to unfold, but I can speak again! I show little. Fifteen years of eclipse have brought me back to being unknown. But that is not what matters most. What matters to me is finding opportunities to create, and to share what I make … at my own pace, which, over time, once again feels right for my age.

I invite you to explore this website, hoping that the stories sketched here will make you want to follow my journey.

Vevey, Spring 2012