BURNING VOLCANO (glass)
2019
50 × 35 cm, Inkjet printing on silver paper, polarised glass
Edition of 15
Sold
The title of this series is inspired by a song by the musician Buvette. In 2017, Maya Rochat created an original performance in collaboration with him. Against a backdrop of live music, she painted live on overhead projectors salvaged from schools, using inks and marbling paint. The image being created is projected and instantly shared with the public, who are invited to enter this colourful, open and festive space.
Through this work, Maya Rochat offers a total immersion in painting, expressing her desire to create a lively and spectacular artistic world. The audience enters the images printed on the floor, while large canvases cover the space, providing new surfaces for projection. The performances are imbued with the energy of the moment of creation, combining painting, collective interaction and music.
The paintings produced on acetate film during these performances are then preserved by Maya Rochat as negatives. She scans them, enlarges them and prints them on different media. Little by little, a visual vocabulary is built up, taking on multiple and varied forms, with the idea of living in the painting and shaping total immersive environments.
Just as the images take on multiple forms, the media are reused and reinterpreted. For example, an A4 painting is transformed into an XXL tarpaulin, which is then recycled as flooring in another context.
In this way, Maya Rochat's images make their way into everyday life, appearing on utilitarian objects. The works then take on a variety of forms, allowing us to experience art on different scales and in multiple relationships to objects, the body and everyday life.
This work has won her international acclaim. LIVING IN A PAINTING has been presented at the Arsenic (Lausanne), the Cité des Arts (Paris), Tate Modern (London), the Abattoirs in Toulouse, and the Victoria Hall and Grand Théâtre in Geneva. She has also taken part in exhibitions at the Cité Internationale (Paris), La Mobilière Headquarters and Duflon / Racz (Bern), VFO (Zurich), Centre Pasquart (Biel) and Twenty14 (Milan).