Ellen Slegers
1972, born in Frankfurt, Germany, lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil
After her Master in Social- and Economic Sciences at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Ellen Slegers studied Fine Arts at the Academies of Fine Arts in Brussels (Hogeschool voor de Vrije Kunsten Sint Lukas) and Düsseldorf, specializing in painting and later photography. In Brussels, Ellen studied with the Belgian painter Philippe Adolphe Van Snick. She left the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf earned the degree Meisterschülerin (literal traduction master disciple) of Professor Helmut Federle, the Swiss painter eradicated in Vienna and Italy.
Via different media, her work oscillates between the other and the own self, reflects this encounter and it’s limits.
In 2014, the artist visited the Brazilian Indian tribe Paiter Suruí in its village Gabgir in the state of Rondônia, Brazil, to study visually, talk and do interviews and to do recordings. Afterwards, she invited a small group of Indian ceramists to her project estemp in São Paulo.
In 2013, Ellen Slegers opened her independent exhibit space estemp (1) in São Paulo, successor of her Düsseldorf based project ESTEMPorary (2005 – 2011), promoting artist’s in residency projects, exhibits and public talks.
In the same year, she organized a group show at her exhibit space estemp creating a dialogue between Indian Paiter Suruí ceramics and baskets with contemporary artworks made by German artists visiting from Düsseldorf, including herself.
2011 she published a book about her independent exhibit space in Düsseldorf in German and Portuguese.
Solo exhibits:
- 2013 Ele, eu e dois pianos (He, I and two pianos), estemp Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
- 2011 Er und ich (He and I), ESTEMPorary Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany
Group exhibits:
- 2015 Vozes Indígenas (Indian voices), Bienal de Curitiba, Brazil
- 2015 Vozes Indígenas (Indian voices), Latin American Pavilion of The Biennial of Venice, Italy
- 2015 O Papagaio de Humboldt (Humboldt’ sparrot exhibit space), Oi Futuro Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro & OCA, Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Brazil
- 2014 The encounter with the white man in his time, installation within the Indian Voices, Bienal de Montevideo, Uruguay
- 2013 Sei que nada sei (I know that I know nothing) – Contemporary Art in dialogue with Indian Art of the Paiter Suruí, estemp Gallery, São Paulo
- 2013 Brise-soleil – on Brazilian Modernity, estemp Gallery, São Paulo
- 2011 Photographers of Granja, Centro Cultural Würth, Cotia, Brazil
- 2010 13th international encounter 10.ART, National Museum Brasília, Brazil
- 2008 UNTERTAG (11min), Gloria hall, Düsseldorf, Germany
- 2007 Akademiestudenten (Academy students), BBK Kunstforum, Düsseldorf
- 2006 nominated for the Art encouragement price of the city of Düsseldorf
- 2006 Exile on Cottage Street & Exile 2, ESTEMPorary Gallery, Düsseldorf
- 2004 Akademierundgang 2004 (Academy exhibit), Deutsche Bank Collection, Düsseldorf
- 2002 Redoux, Matrix Art Projects MAP, Brussels, Belgium
(1) Though with an ideal aim, in Brazil, it has been perceived as and repeatedly called gallery by the public and also the journalists, so that I have succumbed to the name Gallery to make it short.