Heart on Sleeve

In her paintings, Noemi Pfister combines motifs from art history with elements of popular culture. The artist symbolically weaves themes such as youth, digitality, ecology and the human form into multilayered narratives. Her dreamlike landscapes are inhabited by enigmatic figures that seem to belong to a parallel world. Their anatomies appear distorted – they linger on a terrace, squinting into the sun; they perform gymnastic movements that are more play than exercise or they drink energy drinks in a fight against exhaustion. The visual language at times echoes the compositions of Old Master paintings, yet their clothing, postures, and props reflect today’s youth culture. By intertwining the familiar with the uncanny, her works probe the kinds of communities we might inhabit in the future.