SANDRINE PELLETIER 

Dates of residency: November till Dec 2019
Born: 1976
Nationality: Swiss
Lives and works: Cairo and Lausanne
Education:
2002 Graphic Design, University of Art and Design (ECAL) Lausanne
1999 Scenography School of Applied Arts (CEPV) Vevey
Selected shows:
2020 Have You Seen A Horizon, Lately?,  MACAAL Museum, Marrakech
2019 MERDELAMERDELAMERDELAMER, Mario Mauroner Gallery, Vienna
2018 Psyché, Le Cyclop, Milly-la-Forêt
2017 9.5 on Luther squale, Church of Saint-François, Lausanne

THE ARTIST
Sandrine Pelletier is a Swiss sculptor based in Cairo. Her romantic, sometimes tragic, aesthetic is informed by the expression of raw energy (telluric forces, inertia and pressure, combustion and gravity), and by the fragility of beings and things. Each of her works are inspired by specific references, which may be spiritual or scientific – pertaining to the material itself – or simply current events with a universal scope. Her large installations come to occupy empty space as a result of action and process. As a true arsonist of technical and aesthetic clichés, Pelletier pushes each of her new mediums to their points of rupture, tending to choose materials that are transformed by fire such as glass, wood, bronze and earth, which is often seen as an agent of fury yet an essential element of expert craftsmanship.

THE RESIDENCY
Pelletier’s residency at BAR was during the Lebanese Revolution of 2019. During her research, in this troubling and engaging time, she collected two distinguished materials: outdoor ripped posters from the revolution and images of the untamed vegetation of Beirut. Her final project is a wallpaper made from torn up multiple-layers of images of plants and trees that attempt to escape the concrete and the abandoned buildings of Beirut. According to the artist, this wild and strong vegetation that tries to reach out to the light is her metaphoric vision of people fighting for their freedom.