Le monde d’Aïcha

Aï cha has been through a lot. She came to France as an adopted child and grew up there in rather difficult circumstances. Today she lives in Mallorca and has embarked on the adventure of painting. Filled with stringency and immediacy, her paintings are undisguised – they are, as far as the artist’ s biography is concerned, characterized by a deep authenticity that encourages viewers to immerse themselves in them. After all, the figures in her recent large-format paintings are life-size and seek dialogue at eye level with us. Aï cha uses painting to get her story off her chest. In her world of images she returns to her childhood and youth, arranges the things of everyday life, orchestrates the little stories. And yet, there is always something threatening, a gloomy mood perceptible in the background. Her pictorial composition does appear classically trained, the interaction of the pictorial objects seems to be formally conceived with complete sovereignty, the motifs instantly communicate themselves to the viewer. Aï cha could very well have been a prominent player in Art Brut, but she paints here and now.

Since 2001 Andreas Baur was director of the Villa Merkel, Galerie der Stadt Esslingen, which he has shaped through exhibitions and publications as an institution for current international contemporary art. There he has supervised projects with such artists as Mark Dion, Darren Almond, Melanie Smith, Willie Doherty, Barthé lemy Toguo, and Emily Jacir, just to name a few. In addition, he has developed the concepts for thematic group exhibitions. In autumn 2022 he retired and is now starting with new projects of his own.