Yeaterday 2007-2008
The drawings evoke black and white photographs enlarged, which would have almost completely faded. In her meticulous work, the artist places short lines next to each other alternating dark areas that she fills completely and clear surfaces that she leaves empty. The almost endless repetition of the movement of the hand does not have a meditative character, as one might suppose at first glance, but reflects the seismographic trace of a hint of memory: "To live trait for trait the memory", according to the words of the artist to describe this technique that requires a lot of time.
At the base, the artist uses photographs of a time when she still lived in China, before coming to settle in Switzerland in 1987. Her parents sitting at the table, with her mother who knits, the artist with her Sister, her whole class of school, outdoor groups, friends as well as various places and ways of travel are all subjects to which she refers. Work in progress, the frame changes: it is sometimes photographs taken from far, sometimes close-ups. With one exception, the eyes are barely perceptible. The protagonists' gaze dissolves almost entirely in a white void - the past has made it pale, like many other details. As a spectator, it is as if one tried in vain to remember a familiar face that has not been seen for a long time. Events and characters are only a slight shadow of memory, delicately captured on paper.
