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"At first it was a study. I was writing silences, writing nights, I took notes on the inexpressible. I pinned down vertigos."

Arthur Rimbaud


 

Painting is like writing poetry, catching the wind: “Wings to soar above life” as Vincent Van Gogh said. Wisdom resides perhaps in the acceptance of some folly in your life…

I was born in Zurich. In my early years I practiced ballet dancing, which has left me with a taste for a certain exactness. I love calligraphy, cartography, and graffiti, I have always been painting.

I feel close to Paul Klee, Henri Michaux, Gaston Chaissac, Pygmy painters, folk art from all over world, Outsider Art for its spontaneity.
Amerindian societies marvellously succeed in combining a high intellect, a culture of myths, references to the past and a difficult natural life, which forces them to an economy of means, a life reduced to the essential.

I love searching, digging at what’s behind the surface, leading the traveller from one world to the other, creating paths: archaeology of the unconscious.
Everything about painting is both so strange and so simple. I do marvel at the most mundane things.

I try to be simple with simple means: pigment, binder and canvas, or any other chance material.

I never know what is going to happen. At the beginning there is chaos, a sort of magma, I grind, I scrape, I rake. An image half-seen soon brings another one. The canvas builds itself up, layer after layer, things keep arising.

I let things come, I follow my intuition.
The brush acts like a seismograph of the mind.

The canvas slowly brews.

Natasha Krenbol

 

1978-1982

Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

1985-1986

Kala Institute, Berkeley, California

Group exhibitions

2004

Galerie Taoa, Crest, France

2003

Espace Saint-Martin, Paris : Le printemps des singuliers

2000

Prieuré de Manthes, Drôme, France

1999

Funabashi city gallery, Japan

Art Space Rashinban, Tokyo, Japan

1998

Outsider Art Fair, New York

Judy A Saslow gallery, Chicago : Far out'98,

Halle Saint-Pierre, Paris

1996

Altstadt gallery, Bern, Switzerland

1995

Galerie Hamer, Amsterdam

1993

Musée de la poste, Paris : Timbres d'artistes

Site de la Création Franche, Bègles, France : Les jardiniers de la mémoire

1991

Musée de la poste, Paris : Les guichets de l'enfance

1990

Musée de la poste, Paris : Coups d'envois ou l'art à la lettre

Gallery Pixi et Cie, Paris : Rouge écarlate

1988

Drawings for a book Urban and suburban parks published by the Pompidou Center, exhibited at the Center

Solo exhibitions

2007

Galerie Art Prise de Tête, Romans, France

2005

Art@ctua, le Mans, France

2000

Am Platz gallery, Twilight, Eglisau, Switzerland

1999

Galerie Jonas, Petit-Cortaillod, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

1998

Galerie d'Origine, Lyon, France

Altstadt gallery, Bern, Switzerland

1997

Altstadt-halle, Zug, Switzerland

Trubahus gallery, Azmoos, Switzerland

1995

Galerie Michel Lagarde, Paris

Galerie Avantgarde, Mannheim, Germany

Trubahus gallery, Azmoos, Switzerland

1994

Musée Adzak, Paris : Alabama

Galerie du Ressort, Paris, France

Galerie Hamer, Amsterdam

Gallery Bad Schinznach, Switzerland

1991

Gallery Art'o, Aubervilliers : In Harlem streets

La petite galerie, Paris : Le couloir des ancêtres

1986-1994

Drawings regularly published in “Le Monde Diplomatique” and other magazines. Creates Totopiok, the main character of a tale (English and French version, to be published)