Installation view of Résilience by Dorian Büchi. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Mighela Shama. Photo: by Julien Gremaud

Dorian Büchi

RÉSILIENCE Solo Show

12th November 2020 - 20th January 2021

Trapped and unable to breathe. His deepest fear: being cut off from nature. Caught between four walls. For Swiss artist Dorian Büchi, freedom is achieved by being connected to the forces of the earth. By going to meet them in the flesh. On 12 November 2020, Büchi returns to Galerie Mighela Shama with Résilience, a series of paintings and sculptures that showcase a facet of ecology without getting political.

Dorian Büchi

Résilience 9, 2020, oil and acrylic on canvas, 90 x 80 cm.

Photo: by Julien Gremaud

Born in 1989 in Lausanne, Büchi confronted himself to his creative process for the first time in his grandfather studio, a painter and sculptor. He has exhibited in New York and Berlin and had his first solo exhibition in Geneva in 2019 at Galerie Mighela Shama. His stroke, with a singularity, is as gentle as it is brutal and recalls some of Ferdinand Hodlers Symbolist landscapes. The intensity of the colours is reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's oils. But the more one observes, the more his work proves to be unique and detached from all past references. and, I don't think it's possible to put me into a box or detect an artistic trend in my work", says the artist ironically.

Dorian Büchi

Installation view of Résilience by Dorian Büchi. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Mighela Shama. Photo: by Julien Gremaud

A fine connoisseur of art history, Büchi also enjoys questioning the meaning of a work of art as an object. The colour blue, which is very present throughout his work, could be seen as a nod to the blue-chip“ works of art that are said to be timeless and perceived as financially secure. "This research nevertheless follows a desire to influence the communication between people and their environment. To offer an outlook on this relationship, which I believe is crucial to life".

Dorian Büchi

Blue Chips, 2020, Aluminium and wood chips, 100 x 100 cm.

Photo: Julien Gremaud


Last winter, Büchi collected dead and fallen trees that were cluttering up the gardens of some of his acquaintances. Pear, cherry and walnut trees were brought back to his workshop and finely carved. The shavings resulting from their metamorphosis were then upcycled to form the apex, if not the epicentre of the work. By aestheticising the debris of his extractive and creative activity, Büchi questions the function of waste materials. Resilience implies a brutalisation of bodies and boundaries. There is what remains and what is killed. "In my opinion, these sculptures represent man's creative activity. The polished, aesthetic aspect, presented and presentable, accompanied by its raw material, purer, stripped and unconsidered".

Dorian Büchi

Installation view of Résilience by Dorian Büchi. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Mighela Shama. Photo: by Julien Gremaud

Dorian Büchi

Installation view of Résilience by Dorian Büchi. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Mighela Shama. Photo: by Julien Gremaud

Dorian Büchi

Tree series, 2020, pear and walnut wood.

Photo: by Julien Gremaud

A key figure of the exhibition is the prickly pear tree. It is a cactus that originated in Mexico and was brought back to Europe (after the discovery of the Americas) and has since colonised part of North Africa and Southern Europe. Dorian Büchi is accustomed to discerning and drawing out human similarities from his subject of study, i.e. what we share with this without being aware of it. prickly pear can survive almost anywhere. All you have to do is throw one of its cladodes on the ground and roots will form. This ability to adapt is absolutely fascinating to me, and is a compelling illustration of our times. Used by some farmers to mark out their land, the prickly pear protects from invaders and in turn invades. For the artist, it is simultaneously a source of pain, through its thorns, and of life. "It is a plant that provides food and drink. I like to compare it to humans, because it traces a path of pain and happiness, which, ultimately, manages to migrate to survive"

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