Oscillating between poetic beauty, the surreal, and the uncanny: the art of Maria Ceppi

Swiss artist Maria Ceppi's broad repertoire ranges from small-size works to monumental installations and sculptures, from site-specific to participatory projects. The theme of her works often revolves around the tension between naturalness and artificiality. Born in 1963, Ceppi completed her education at art schools in Switzerland and Paris as well as during a studio residency in Philadelphia. Throughout her career, she has been inspired by everyday life. For her works, she uses a wide variety of materials, such as soap, bronze, aluminum and other metals, plastic, or natural products, as well as countless found objects and components gathered from households, trade, and industry.

Ceppi's small objets cultes form a common thread running through her entire oeuvre of more than three decades. Found objects are stripped of their functional and meaningful context and transformed into new works with an autonomous sculptural presence in astonishing combinations and constellations. Especially in her recent monumental Hybrid Shapes, that transformation and merging come to unprecedented effect.

This first-ever monograph on Maria Ceppi brings together her multilayered and heterogeneous oeuvre and offers an insight into the artist's exploratory and experimental method.