"The history of art is the history of humanity in purified form".
From "The Unknown in Art" by Willi Baumeister

Artist's Statement

Watch me speak about my work in the ArtbyArtists youtube film here

Or follow me on YouTube - I post 5 minutes about Art regularly. 

Sibylle Laubscher (CH/UK, *1971) seeks to show the numinous, spiritual and beautiful in her work. Her (poetic-expressionistic) style invites you to dialogue with the work.

Laubscher is fascinated by colour (=light), form (=space), movement (=expression) and a sense of play. With these she creates pictures catching the movement of the beautiful and her aesthetic feeling.

Laubscher enjoys delving into other worlds by reading, drawing and painting. She paints to express herself, hide herself in the process of making the work. Since studying textile design (print) at university, her love of the printed image has rekindled. She prints entirely by hand, true to her maxim: “art is made by people for people”.

Her work explores themes such as being a woman and the environment in an oblique manner, so it remains open, is self-referential and can be interpreted in many ways. It is a living breathing organism that comes alive when you look at it.

Her work is informed by a continuous study of nature and drawing practice to show depth and meaning.

Laubscher firmly believes people need art. Art is a vital form of human expression. It is a life-sustaining force.

She has exhibited widely in group exhibitions throughout Europe, solo exhibitions in Vienna, Austria and Basel, Switzerland. She is a member of the Swiss Society of Female Artists.

“Sibylle’s work opens up the imagination creating a portal into a world of beauty. She has a uniquely quirky and joyful aesthetic which infuses her art whether it is figurative or abstract.” Dr. J. Philips

 

Artist’s statement (1st person)

I create artwork that looks to catch the numinous, the spiritual, to show beauty. Making artwork allows me to create unique worlds that convey joy and hope – so necessary in the world today.

Whether working from observation or from my inner feeling (abstract), I work in a poetic-expressionistic style that draws you in and enables you to communicate with my work.  

I am fascinated by colour (=light), form (=space) and movement (=expression). In my practice I try to capture these and create living pictures, constantly honing my craft to catch the movement of the beautiful and my aesthetic feeling. 

Since my childhood I have delved into other worlds, be it by reading or by drawing and painting. I paint to express myself, to hide myself in the process of making the work. I explore themes such as being a woman and the environment in my practice, but in an oblique manner, so the artwork remains open and free, is self-referential and can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

My abstract work is informed by my study of nature and constant drawing practice; it comes from within me and is a response to the world around me. Without studying my surroundings, by sketching, drawing inspired by observation, reading, I could not make these works.

I believe in the craft of painting and practice it regularly. I believe art needs to have depth and meaning. It is a living breathing organism that comes alive when you look at it. It is a unique world open to be interpreted differently by everyone. However, it cannot be so perfect that everything is expressed. It has to leave room for you, the viewer, to enter into it.

I firmly believe people need art. Art is a vital form of human expression. It is a life-sustaining force. Art gives you, the viewer, power to shape your life.

I find many sources for my art in nature. When studying nature I am interested in penetrating its very spirit, which is never fully shown, despite the wonderful variety of forms. Nature never discloses the whole idea that wanted to take shape. It holds something back, as it were, and it is this something that I seek to find, to reveal, in order to paint the spirit in matter.

Amazingly, delving into the spiritual side of nature then opens up an increasingly supernatural world of colour and form: the world of abstraction. Kandinsky says: "When the artist has outer and inner eyes for nature, it thanks him by inspiring him. It will lead us at last to cosmic feeling, to the music of the spheres." A little later, the artist Piet Mondrian formulated the same experience thus: "We must not look beyond nature, but rather see through it: we must see more deeply, our vision must be abstract, must be universal. Then externality becomes for us what it really is: a mirror of truth."

That is why there are both representational and non-representational compositions in my portfolio. The representational does not make the non-representational meaningless and the non-representational does not make the representational superfluous. They are mutually dependent. We live between the poles of spirit and matter - we are nature, but also spirit. Art is the force that keeps spirit and matter in a living, moving balance.

I start from the three basic pillars of occidental cultural creation, developed in ancient Greece, and also capable of transforming non-European cultures:

Theoria - Ratio - Praxis

Theoria, in its original understanding, refers to the mental vision of that which is not accessible to sensual perception.

Ratio is used as a collective term for the comprehension of being by means of reason and understanding;

Praxis is the activity of giving spiritual or material form to the knowledge gained.

Based on this, my practice is divided into an aesthetic-artistic, philosophical-artistic and a practical-artistic area.

My essays, for example, stem from the aesthetic-philosophical part. My painting and graphic art in the fields of non-objective and abstract forms of expression form the practical part.