Artist in Residence 2023
Valentin Egli
1990, Zurich (Switzerland)
My aim at CIS would be to develop my sculptural praxis. Building on my substantial experience as craftsman and artist of long standing, I want to test the limits of diversity in the combinatory possibilities of materials. I want to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others and integrate them into my work. A residency would also enable me to remain focused on my work for an extended period, something that the hustle and bustle of everyday life, along with the demands of being the father of a young daughter while working as a freelance artist, make it difficult for me to manage.
Ticino has been part of me since my childhood. The landscape, language, and culture evoke in me a sense of home, which is precisely what I am hoping to immortalize by the work I do using these distinctive stones and rocks.
I have already worked with stones and marble, dealt with them hands-on as materials, and used them as aggregates for casting mixtures. In the course of my work, I have been able to perceive new colours and textures in rock, which is what awakened my fascination with the material and the diverse possibilities that it offers. The arrangement of the stones and the form that individual pebbles take on after grinding are variables that cannot be controlled during casting, and it is toward precisely this, the tension between control and chance, that I would like to turn my artistic attention.