The tide of self-portraits posted in a world eager to share every moment, some living organisms rely on others to be portrayed. Our cities. Buildings, bridges, cars and their surroundings make up the components, and the highly energetic, fast-paced movement of the inhabitants become the real life of the urban jungle. Everyone is a stand-in, and everything is a landmark. From Neuchâtel - the middle-sized town in Switzerland where Gfeller grew up - to the grand metropolis such as New York or Paris, the heart of the cities is the cumulative sum of it all; the passers-by strolling in front of a department store window that announces a “sale”; the hasty yellow cabs, set against towering skyscrapers; or more calmly, a ballerina rehearsing the choreography before the evening’s performance. Through the viewfinder of the camera, Gfeller delves deep into the soul of the city, soaking up the beat.

Her passion for photography was ignited during the four months Gfeller spent travelling through California in 1985. The contrast between the small and conform lakeside hometown in Switzerland and the glitzy cities and laidback lifestyle of the West Coast, bombarded the nineteen-year-old with impressions. Sights and sounds of the short American voyage would not only be imprinted in her memory - and set the path for her artistic future - but also on hundreds of snaps. Ten years later, after concluding her studies in art history and French literature in Lausanne, Gfeller once again put her sight on the Unites States and moved to New York.

In New York City, Gfeller trawled the energetic metropolis and developed her now distinctive photographs of urban cities - and back at her studio, she created long photographic friezes, emphasising the colour, composition and rhythm engrained in the city. A unique technique combining paper, photography and monoprint - overlaying images on images, some areas fractured and faded, and others crystal clear with a focus on subtle details.

While the initial act of photographing is frantic and spontaneous, this process of collage is much more deliberate, creating careful compositions that reflect not only the physical environment of the city, but the sensations the artist experienced. Gfeller describes her works as ‘animated, living paintings’ in which she does not act as a passive observer of the scene, but instead creates the sense of being completely immersed within the city. Some collages become fractured by a number of different views of the city creating a feeling of chaos and life, in other cases, the images are more subdued, using only a single or very small number of photographs that form simple geometric repetitions. In this way, her images are extremely intimate impressions of life, as seen directly through the artist’s eyes, with a front row seat into her consciousness.

In InsideOut (1997) the artist presents five sections of an exterior brick building in New York, repeated across the work with only subtle differences in colour, shade and placement. In contrast to the noise and movement of some of her more complexly layered collages, this work has a surreal calmness to it. InsideOut could be a representation of any urban city, and the strangely still atmosphere of the work could almost evoke a feeling of déja-vu in the viewer. The same tranquility is found in Rebus (1997), where Gfeller turns and rotates the cropped images of the façade of “Merchants Bank of New York”, giving it an impression of a word puzzle, as implied in the title.

Gfeller’s move from New York to Paris in 1999 had a significant influence on the artist’s creative development. While she retained her preoccupation with urban life and photography, she was now immersed in a completely different kind of landscape. Absent were the soaring glass-façade office buildings and neon colours - as seen in Multi-Voices (1998) showing the busy and crowded streets of Buenos Aires - and replaced by the historical aura of Paris.

Affected by the gentler pace of the continental French capital, Gfeller’s urban friezes absorbed the green and leafy inhabitants and a lower sky. From a bridge on the flowing River Seine, La Traversee (2000) is the kind of collage, showing the quieter side of the city as Parisians cross with the majestic Louvre in the background. This is somewhat contrary to Survey (2000) which is displaying the other part of Paris; a much more chaotic scenery with its cars, buses and traffic lights passing by a billboard of Picasso. However, both works are meditating on the urban cities using photographic collage, giving a glimpse into the influence of Gfeller’s then, relatively new experiments in video, sound and compositions. The images appear like storyboards for a film, divided into distinct sections across the page, emphasizing both movement and the passage of time, and hinting at the story within the works - a scene that is being played out in front of the viewer.

Uniquely, the collages from the later part of the nineties reflect a turning point for Gfeller as she developed her practice into the multi-disciplinary artist she is known for today.

The urban stories by Gfeller have been widely exhibited during the past thirty years at group exhibitions, solo shows, and are frequently shown at selected art fairs such as Art Basel, FIAC and Paris Photo. Numerous books have been published about her practice, and today her works forms part of several private and public collections.

InsideOut, La Traversee, Multi-Voices, Rebus and Survey are collages that reflect on the artist’s experiences of both New York City (1995-1999) and Paris, where she works and lives today. The five works were released as print editions in 2001 in a collaboration between Catherine Gfeller and Eyestorm. From the original editions of 75, 100 or 125, printed as iris prints on Velin d’Arche paper, only a small number of each were printed, signed, titled and numbered by the artist.

You can find more information about the photographic editions and see them in more details on Catherine Gfeller’s artist page here.