Katia Bourdarel’s seemingly mystical multimedia works transport one into a fictional world of fairy tales. They are skilfully drawn and painted imaginary worlds whose subtly arranged motifs suggest “prettiness”; but in fact the spectators are spirited away into a world where good and evil rub shoul-ders—a world believed to be long lost but actually very present. Her pictures tell a mysterious story, of loveliness and fear, affection and abandonment, where one constantly oscillates between the ap-parent poles of good and evil so that everything remains unresolved. Katia Bourdarel is extremely good at interweaving strands of narrative that offer us no closure but several possibilities for further imaginative investigations. Her watercolours invite the spectators to delve into a new dimension. They are picture stories—fairy tales without beginning or end.

Beside the large mural conceived especially for this exhibition, several series produced in recent years give an overview of the artist’s unusual oeuvre. In “Les eaux dormantes” the artist takes up a recurring motif—young women in the water. They are depicted in the process of emerging from the water, or being reflected in the water’s surface. Also in “Le miroir du ciel” the play with water and reflection is central. With perfect mastery she depicts the arms and hands that touch the water’s sur-face while exploring several representational possibilities. “Fleuriade” and “Je t’aime” are wonderful declarations of love to flowers.

Another of Bourdarel’s works—the video “La Danse du Papillon”, which uses animation tech-nique,—is shown at Videokunst.ch. The work’s telling title leads away from reality into an unreal dream world of in-betweenness.

Bernhard Bischoff, April 2014