Born in 1956 in Switzerland, Silvia Bächli studied at the School of Applied Arts in Basel, where she still lives today. She explores drawing in all its forms, and her modest, precise and extremely coherent graphic oeuvre has been closely followed by Basel’s avant-garde art institutions since the 1970s.

Taking as her point of departure her own life and her immediate surroundings, Bächli scrutinizes the world in minute detail. Initially eschewing broad outlines (which she has recently rediscovered as a means of delivering forms that are always highly organic), she insinuates herself into every gap, focuses on each thing in order to understand how it works. Her drawing practice proceeds in an almost ritual order, unchanged since her early career, starting with a spontaneous generation of simple forms followed by careful construction.

The artist works on paper in a wide range of formats, textures and nuances. She rarely employs colour, but primarily uses Indian ink, charcoal, oil pastel, watercolour and more recently acrylic and photography.

Previous exhibitions (selection)  

2015
Peter Freeman Inc., New York (United States)
FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon (France

2014
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (Germany)

2009
53rd Venice Biennale, Swiss Pavilion (Italy)

2007
Centre Pompidou, Paris (France)