Lugano  Exhibition

Nature and art are inseparable in the life of Cornelia Hagmann, as both allow us to fill our lungs with the beauty of the magical world the Swiss artist experiences each time she approaches a canvas anew with her paintbrush, immersing herself in another world, as she herself says, entering “a trance, a meditation, a non-realistic space” where she see images that are not revealed in everyday life.

This “state of grace” to which Cornelia abandons herself allows her to create works that are at the same time harmonious and eccentric, revealing her energy and vitality, through a use of brilliant, luminous and iridescent colour, where her art is like life, that is to say full of colour, “neither black nor white”, but rich with vibrations that enable her to “express the forms of the human spirit”. The forms move and arrange themselves in the landscapes of dreams, a physical and psychological state of well-being that only nature, with all its myriad of secrets and benefits, is able to bestow.

Nature speaks to us, as Hermann Hesse, the most stylish of Swiss writers, would have said. Cornelia seeks to unravel its secrets, grasping its kernel, it’s spark and the idea that is felt when we are in direct contact with it, with a belief that every one of its elements has within it the “life of eternal life” where, for example, “the trees have long-term thoughts, tranquil and long of breath, just as they have a life that is longer than ours” and so it is that their vital flow extends onwards towards eternity. Cornelia seems to welcome Hesse’s words, which she recalls: “your house is within you or in no place”, and so it is the artist who looks tirelessly within herself to paint that musicality that is in the places of the soul, those deepest spaces that tell tales of vitality, happiness, self-knowledge and a search for inner balance. The tangles of roots of the great trees that Cornelia paints refer also to the tumult of thoughts that stretch out and disentangle themselves among those gazes of women absorbed and bewitching as they are as they seek to touch eternity, a peace of the senses and a sense of belonging to a cosmic, pantheistic, dimension of the universe.

Hers are enchanted, fairy-tale environments, where the faces hide personal criteria, reflect multiple identities and belong to whoever, it is that stops to look at them. They are images that teeter between timelessness and reality, between humanity and dream, and between desire and possession, where the encounters may be with water lilies, flowers and butterflies, all elements of nature that suggest lightness. In the words of Hagmann herself, “for me the butterfly is a symbol of metamorphosis, representing change in life. From birth to death there are many rebirths and many deaths. It is up to us to let things go, to abandon ourselves and to start anew, every day of our lives. That is the philosophy I adopt for my life and for my art: a depth of being.” The desire, then, is to feel herself to be a part of a universe and in perfect harmony with all of its elements.

This is the imperative for Cornelia, something to be achieved by the artist by appropriating silence to herself, a condition that helps her to realise the landscapes that she paints, offspring of her exuberant and enchanted pictorial language. The paints are not in themselves enough for the painter, as she also “uses paper and other materials, such as fabrics, stones, threads and paper butterflies in the creation of collages.” As for the creative process itself, she says: “I am greatly attracted to nature, where I find a great many elements and details that help me arrange in my head the first sketch of a work. I extrapolate from nature those elements that the human eye cannot see but which enable me to frame the work. Then I let the idea ripen for some time, until I finally decide to realise it. I let all this time pass to give space for any additional ideas to come in and then, having made my decision to create the work, and after considering what materials I want to use, in the end it all happens quite quickly. For me the spiritual part is the most important part of my work”. Cornelia Hagmann’s painting thus represents an encounter with the dream and its tumultuous floating worlds that soothe the mind’s eye in ways that can inspire a sense of serenity and of love, feelings that each one of us ceaselessly and longingly search for in our daily existence.

CORNELIA HAGMANN
Profondità della natura

September 27, 2018 – February 28, 2019

in the premises of:
AXION SWISS Bank SA
Viale Stefano Frassini 22
CH-6901 Lugano - Switzerland

in collaboration with:
MUST GALLERY
Via del Canvetto
CH-6900 Lugano - Switzerland

Tel. +41 91 970 21 84
info@mustgallery.ch
www.mustgallery.ch

Photo Gallery: Vernissage Profondità della natura
Vernissage in September 27, 2018 in the premises of AXION SWISS Bank SA, Lugano
See some impressions