Céline Ducrot
Wish we were closer

Céline Ducrot’s paintings show cinematic scenes whose narratives can never be clearly deciphered. Young, female protagonists are frozen in peculiar, sometimes enigmatic moments. With their eyes mostly closed, they naturally carry out actions that appear stringent in the immanent logic of the image, but whose story is to be written in the mind of the viewer. Although most of the figures’ gestures seem familiar, the lack of correspondence with the other pictorial elements makes the scenarios appear mysterious, surreal and sometimes uncanny. This effect is often undermined by the presence of figures outside the pictorial frame, viewers are only given a fragmentary insight into a strange world. An explanation is never included in what is depicted.
Céline Ducrots paintings are rendered in airbrush on MDF board. The airbrush is a small, handheld dispenser, that once triggered, causes paint to be automatized into a fine mist, which is then applied to a surface. This acrylic and compressed-air mixture achieves precision via the artist’s hand, as she physically distributes and controls the intensity, radius and spray pattern onto the painting. The extension of this painterly technique was pioneered in the 1920s by Man Ray, the main representative of Dadaism, who experimented with the so-called „Rayograph“.

The relationship between the protagonists and their world of emotions is only hinted at, leaving room for diverse perspectives. The characters’ clothing and accessories, as well as the electronic devices, clearly place all scenes in the present, but the locations largely refuse to be attributed to specific places. The placement of all objects and pictorial elements is clearly intended as if in a puzzle, often with metaphorical connotations such as the proverbial stone in the shoe in Walk a while. Moths and flies appear as a striking, recurring component, highly charged in art history as symbols of Vanitas painting, metaphorical bearers of doom or pieces of craftsmanship, which are also ambivalent protagonists in Ducrot’s paintings.

Céline Ducrot was born in 1992 in Fribourg, Switzerland. She lives and works in Biel/Bienne CH. She is a graduate of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and exhibits internationally, including in 2023 in the group exhibition FEMBOT, The Hole, New York City, at the National Gallery, Prague CZE, Kunsthaus Biel, Biel/Bienne CHE, Antichambre Bern CHE, Kunstraum Satellite, Thun CHE, KRONE COURONNE, Biel/Bienne CHE. Her work was honored at the Swiss Design Awards 2018 and the Prix Anderfuhren 2018 and was nominated for the Swiss Design Award 2022. As an illustrator, her work has been published in various publications and institutions such as Die Zeit, FAZ Quarterly, Pro Helvetia, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich and WOZ die Wochenzeitung. In April 2025 the Kunsthalle Gießen is presenting a large duo exhibition with Céline Ducrot and Cathrin Hoffmann.