Valérie Favre | Die Ruhe der Seelenruhe

About

Valérie Favre’s current paintings continue her themes of the artist’s authority and aura in society and the traditional ascription of gender roles, topics she has been exploring for many years through ever-new pictorial programmes and groups of works. The comédie tragédie of human existence – captured in myth, saturated by literature, philosophy, film and art history – now forms the focal point of her visual language. 

The new paintings are constituted by an interior that lies somewhere in between a ballroom and a dollhouse. It simultaneously conveys absence and presence as well as stillness and communicative festivity through its gestural, pastose presentation on the one hand and the bright white of its colouring on the other. It is thus perhaps reminiscent of a Strindbergian dinner party. 

Inspired by the painting “Letzte Generalversammlung der Eidgenössischen Bankanstalt” (“The Last General Meeting of the Swiss Bank”, 1966, Centre Dürrenmatt, Neuchâtel) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, who lived in Valérie Favre’s home town of Neuchâtel, she refers to key artistic positions of the early 20th century, from time to time quoting the paintings and symbolism of Pierre Bonnard and James Ensor as well as Odilon Redon to negotiate issues that are topical in the present day and age. For Valérie Favre, who also works in the fields of sculpture and drawing, painting is a sensual medium; it is a technique through which she can circle around and conceptually explore the issues she seeks to investigate.