Esther Petsche and Stefan Trueb explore questions of identity, gender roles, and the complexity of human existence in different ways. In doing so, they trace the tension between outer appearance and inner experience. In the interplay of their works in clay and glass, something new emerges: an oscillation between solidity and transparency, vulnerability and concealment. The works engage in a dialogue of subtle nuances. The quiet repositioning of gender is provocatively understated.
Vita Esther Petsche (b. 1973 in Germany) has lived and worked in Switzerland since 2000. After completing her studies in fashion design at the University of the Arts Bremen (1993–1999), she worked as a costume assistant to Frida Parmeggiani and Robert Wilson at the Zurich Opera House (2000–2002). Since 2002 she has been active in photography, graphic design, and film — both freelance and employed — realizing, among other things, documentary film projects. Between 2006 and 2015 she helped shape the cultural institution Unternehmen Mitte in Basel as cultural manager. Since 2023 she has dedicated herself to artistic work with clay as her medium.
“In the combination of clay, stone, and wood, an archaic and reduced formal language emerges. For me, these materials become a medium of reconnection — to nature, the body, and origin. It is a quiet, poetic dialogue with life itself.” -- Petsche
Vita Stefan Trueb Born in Basel in 1967, lives and works in Switzerland and Alsace.
“My art is a dialogue between light and identity – between who I was and who I have become.” — Trueb
My journey of artistic expression began with painting, but it was only in colored glass that I found the material capable of giving my inner experience a translucent voice. It is not merely about colors and forms – it is the fracture that reflects what is healing within me.