Sonya Friedrich
Sonya Friedrich (born February 17, 1960 in Grossaffoltern ) is a Swiss artist who specializes in drawing , sculpture , installation art and building design.
Most of her works are the result of studies on the subject of lightness, transparency, fragility and levitation. Her deep interest in botany is expressed again and again . Her visual language moves between perfect craftsmanship and a playful, spontaneous expression. References to writers and poets such as ETA Hoffmann , Lewis Carroll , Italo Calvino , Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Wolfgang Hildesheimer have an important place in Sonya Friedrich's work. In the course of courses and workshops run through them, collective work has often emerged, including a series of wind turbines.
Life
Sonya Friedrich grew up in Grossaffoltern BE. Her father was a carpenter and aroused her interest in all things handcraft. After training as a factory teacher at the Thun teacher training college , she began teaching. In 1994 she acquired the drawing teacher qualification. A year-long trip through Indonesia, Thailand and Nepal was a defining factor. Here she got to know a mentality contrary to today's western values, which made a deep impression on her. Sonya Friedrich has been working as a freelance artist in Solothurn since 1992 .
plant
In the nineties, Sonya Friedrich dealt with almond-shaped hollow ceramic bodies , whose thin walls and lightness she developed to the limit of the possible. Later she created non-representational drawings that resemble weightless traces of movement. Then she turned to the glass painting, printing transparencies on panes, backing them with foil or painting them with glaze. Parallel to these works, for which she often used her own photos, various three-dimensional installation works of art were created.
The first sculptural installation work was a transparent little house with a gable roof the size of an allotment garden house ("I want to herd goats again, hanami = Japanese look at flowers", 2011). Sonya Friedrich passionately collects found objects of no or no great material value such as seed pods, pieces of bark, stones, snow globes, devotional objects commonly rated as kitsch, toys, vessels, drinking glasses, etc. Her walk-in house, which was exhibited in the art museums of Olten and Biel, took some Hundreds of these objets trouvés - on shelves that separated the inside from the outside.
In the summer of 2012, Sonya Friedrich realized her installation “Linden Blossoms” for the atrium of the Olten Cantonal Hospital . It consists of 118 gold-plated copper-bronze lime-tree blossoms roughly twice their natural size. Each of the flowers was created by hand as a unique specimen. As if they were floating from the sky, they hang on thin gold threads, arranged by chance, spread over four floors. They are attached to a white lacquered iron branch that is fixed at a height of 10 meters. Depending on the wind conditions, the flowers turn or begin to swing.
The 2013 kinetic installation "Where the winds dig into our little flowers" (the title is a quote from Jean Paul ) consists of a horizontally mounted, feather-light spoked wheel driven by an electric motor (two revolutions per minute). Natural and artificial found objects and transparent glass pictures hang on the wheel. A spotlight projects the slowly moving shadows and images onto a wall.
In 2014 Sonya Friedrich created a five-meter-long shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) , next to which hangs a swing with Italo Calvino's The Baron on the trees . In the same year u. a. the mobile Libellula for the Aarberg hydropower plant
She realized the 5 × 5 × 5 meter cube “ Goya - También mañana florecerán las flores” for the exhibition “Path of Humanity - parcours humain” in the former tram depot in Burgernziel Bern . As simple as the Kaaba , but white, “Goya - También mañana florecerán las flores” presented itself from the outside. Inside was a chessboard-like arrangement at a height of one and a half meters, a garden of green and flowering plants. Towards the top, the cube was completed by a transparent collage from Goya's etching cycle Desastres de la Guerra . Sonya Friedrich radically reversed the traditional pattern - calamity on earth, paradise in heaven.
Dürer's master watercolor " The large piece of lawn " interests the artist from an aesthetic and botanical point of view, but also because she sees this work as a counterpart to her own work, paying attention to the inconspicuous, unspectacular and humble. With the help of experts, she analyzed the plants on the “large piece of lawn” and made the result the content of a ten-part installation.
The offer of being able to exhibit in the former Cistercian convent Fraubrunnen (1246–1528) in the canton of Bern in 2018 led to an examination of the subject of Fons beatea Mariae , but also of luminescence , as part of the exhibition took place in a windowless, Romanesque vaulted cellar. Her installation of 16 plaster rings with white clay animals on the head is an example of the artist's intention to bring together formal conciseness and complexity in terms of content. For the former gatehouse she created the installation “At the fountain behind the gate”, which relates in many ways to the veneration of Mary.
Art and construction
- 2006: Art and construction project competition, realized for Baloise Bank SoBa Kriegstetten
- 2007: Art and construction project competition, OZ 13 Subingen , realized with Max Doerfliger
- 2010: Art and construction realized for Baloise Bank SoBa Biberist
- 2012: Art and construction project competition, 118 linden blossoms, realized for the Olten Cantonal Hospital
- 2015: Art and construction project competition, Swiss Water Prize, realized for the Aarberg hydropower plant
Awards and public purchases
- 2002: Work contribution from the Canton of Solothurn
- 2015: Regiobank Solothurn recognition award
- Canton of Solothurn, several purchases
- City of Solothurn
- Solothurner Bank SoBa, Grenchen
- Grossaffoltern BE community
- Swiss Prime Site, Olten
- Central Library, Solothurn
- Gymnasium Neufeld, Bern
Exhibitions
- Involved several times in the annual cantonal exhibitions of the Solothurn artists
- 1993: «Pictures», Galerie Vita, Bern, group exhibition
- 1995: Vita Gallery, Bern
- 1996: "Lichtweiss", Künstlerhaus S11, Solothurn, group exhibition
- 1997: “Experiment Bilderbuch”, Oldenburg City Museum (D), group exhibition
- 1997: «Pictures», Galerie Vita, Bern
- 1998: Wanner AG, Solothurn
- 1998: "Moments", Künstlerhaus S 11, Solothurn, group exhibition
- 2000: Künstlerhaus, Solothurn
- 2000: Galerie Grossen, Grenchen
- 2001: Vita Gallery, Bern
- 2002: Forum d'art contemporain, Sierre VS, group exhibition
- 2003: Schlösschen Vorder-Bleichenberg, Biberist, group exhibition
- 2004: "20 Interviews", Kunsthaus Grenchen Visarte Solothurn
- 2005: "Blue", Mohr Gallery, Mountain View / California / USA :,
- 2006: "Blue", Consulate General of Switzerland, San Francisco, group exhibition
- 2006: Wanner AG, Solothurn, group exhibition
- 2007: Galerie Rössli, Balsthal, group exhibition
- 2008: Galerie NäjereHuus, Hersiwil
- 2009: "Gewächs & Geschöpf", Galerie Christoph Abbühl, Solothurn
- 2010: «Werkschau 10», organized by Visarte, Stadthaus Olten
- 2010: "Subject = Object = Subject", Oxyd Kunsträume, Winterthur
- 2013: “Earth does not escape heaven”, Galerie Christoph Abbühl, Solothurn
- 2013: «Review - cross view. Transparency as an art theme », Oxyd Kunsträume, Winterthur
- 2014: Cantonal Berne Jura: Center Pasquart Biel, Museé des art Moutier
- 2015: “archebarkeschiffundfloss”, Oxyd Kunsträume, Winterthur, group exhibition
- 2015: "Giardino meraviglioso", Oxyd Kunsträume, Winterthur, group exhibition
- 2016: “Goya - También mañana florecerán las flores”, Bern: Tramdepot Burgernziel, group exhibition
- 2016/2017: “Beyond nature - in transformation”, Kunsthaus Grenchen, group exhibition
- 2017: “You can only see clearly with the heart”, Fünfeckpalast, Trogen Appenzell AR
- 2017: «Weiss», Galerie Christoph Abbühl, Solothurn, group exhibition
- 2017: «black / white», organized by Visarte, Olten, group exhibition
- 2018: “At the fountain behind the gate”, Schlosskeller gallery, Fraubrunnen
- 2018: Galerie Christoph Abbühl, Solothurn
- 2019: Visarte Solothurn, "Is art a construction site?" Schmiedegasse s11 Solothurn, group exhibition
- 2019: Visarte Solothurn, “Drawings”, Olten, group exhibition
- 2020: “Where the winds burrowed into our flowers” Murten light festival
- 2020: "I corvi della signora Palladino", office # 10, branch of the Kunstmuseum Olten
- 2020: «revivals», Galerie Christoph Abbühl / Kunstforum Solothurn
literature
- Alfred S. Maurer: Surprises from Solothurn. In: Solothurner Zeitung . June 10, 2002.
- 20 interviews. Exhibition at the Kunsthaus Grenchen, 2004. In: Format visarte.solothurn. No. 4, 2005.
- Fränzi Rütti-Saner: The room is white - and much more. In: Solothurner Zeitung. November 11, 2005.
- Eva Buhrfeind: Very close to each other. Gallery Rössli. In: Solothurner Tagblatt . March 16, 2007.
- Peter Killer: Crystal-clear views of the inexplicable. To the art-in-building contribution in the Upper School Center, Subingen. In: OZ 13 - Upper School Center Subingen. 2008.
- Eva Buhrfeind: Poetry of mysterious transparency. Galerie Christoph Abbühl Solothurn. In: Solothurner Zeitung. January 17, 2008.
- Hanspeter Flückiger: A flower meadow in winter. Christoph Abbühl Gallery. In: Solothurner Tagblatt. January 15, 2008.
- Peter Killer: Linden blossom - there is too much noise in the world. Self-published by Sonya Friedrich. 2012.
- Eva Buhrfeind: Sonya Friedrich takes up the issue of transparency again. Galerie Christoph Abbühl Solothurn. In: Solothurner Zeitung. December 30, 2012.
- Lucia Angela Cavegn: Art of Transparency. Oxyd Kunsträume Winterthur. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . May 31, 2013.
- Fränzi Zwahlen-Saner: Baron in the trees. In: Solothurner Zeitung. May 4, 2015.
- Peter Killer: Libellula - a three-dimensional poem. In: Special issue of the Swiss Water Prize 2015.
- Pia Scheidegger: BKW is characterized by conservationists. In: Berner Zeitung . May 22, 2015.
- Anne-Camille Vaucher: A sculpture for the Aarberg power plant. In: Bieler Tagblatt . May 22, 2015.
- Fränzi Zwahlen-Saner: Libulella. In: Solothurner Zeitung. May 24, 2015.
- Regula Blatter: History interpreted with imagination. In: Solothurner Zeitung. May 11, 2018.
- Fränzi Zwahlen-Saner: Maria 's source of life. In: Solothurner Zeitung. May 16, 2018.
- Eva Buhrfeind: Like all of a piece. In: Solothurner Zeitung. 3rd November 2018.
- Simone K. Rohner: Sketches in space. In: Bieler Tagblatt. 20th November 2018.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Friedrich, Sonya |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 17, 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Big mouths |