gradually_real

Swiss artist Christine Streuli is a voracious visual sampler, borrowing from sources as diverse as seventeenth-century still lifes and tapestries, the decorative technique of decalcomania favoured by the surrealists, wallpaper and contemporary tattooing. These seemingly contradictory aesthetics conjoin in an abundance of colours, patterns and shapes to form her opulent and seductive work. In her new site-specific installation for the 19th Biennale of Sydney, Streuli took over the Mess Hall, once the social centre of the Convict Precinct on the upper part of Cockatoo Island. She produced gradually_real (2014) in situ, turning the exhibition space into a bespoke studio. Using photographic processes to create a one-to-one replica of the historic building, the artist has created architectural strata that reflect the complexity of her works on canvas.

Streuli delights in experimentation and, like the pieces it produces, her methodology is intuitive and unpredictable – happy accidents play a role in her decision making. Employing handmade stencils, dyes, stamps, sprays and lacquer as well as more traditional painting techniques, Streuli layers, overlaps and repeats to produce pieces with a plethora of visual stimuli. Blossoms, rosettes, netting, and swirls of lavish colours are favourites, as are interlocking geometric shapes and arabesque patterning. With so many different elements, the associative potential her work inspires is limitless. Added to this are her distinctive titles – Jackpot, bad mood, make me change my mind, frozen for now, 100 aspects of the moon – which encourage further mental and linguistic association.

In keeping with the dynamism of her work, Streuli’s practice often bleeds out and consumes its immediate environment. For her solo exhibition ‘ensemble ensemble’ (2005) at Kunstraum Kreuzlingen, Streuli developed the work within the actual gallery space, stamping, spraying and imprinting patterns across large pieces of paper laid out on the floor, the layers building up and spreading upwards to the canvases on the walls. In this way the experience of the show unfolded as viewers moved through the space, akin to the spreading action of liquid or paint – or that of energy expanding. Streuli brought a similar approach to the Swiss Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), where she incorporated the roof’s distinct scaffolding and strong play of light and shadow into her conception for the installation. Streuli’s oeuvre has a strong relational aspect; works build on one another across space and time.

Her large mixed-media work on cotton, Frank (2012), is a frenetic wonderland where lines resembling electrical cords or neon signs intersect with floating oranges and multicoloured fans. In this and other works, repetition is employed not for its decorative effect, but to make a bold, insistent statement. More recently, Streuli has sought to distance herself from the subjective, emotive readings often attributed to the output of painters. Rather than oil paint and brushes, she employs masking techniques to produce precise shapes and sharper edges that have a more detached, mechanised appearance. Like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Elaine Sturtevant before her, Streuli repurposes popular culture imagery, speaking to the conceptual relationship between an original and its reproduction.

Streuli’s solo exhibitions include ‘Nonstoppainting’, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2013–14); ‘One Piece Jump In’, Gallerie Mark Müller, Zürich (2012); ‘mini maxi mental mess’, Monica De Cardenas Galleria, Zuoz (2011); and ‘Brandblasen’, Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg (2009). Her work has also been included in a number of international group exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Luzern (2013); Galerie Rupert Pfab, Düsseldorf (2012); Sfeir–Semler Gallery, Beirut (2010); and Helmhaus, Zürich (2009). In 2007, Streuli was one of four artists representing Switzerland at the 52nd Venice Biennale.