29 Apr Interviewing Bettina Bucher-Schmidt | Finalist of Arte Laguna Prize 20th edition 2025
Bettina Bucher-Schmidt is an artist of German origin. Throughout her life, she has traveled extensively around the world, inevitably leading to new experiences related to life and contemporary art, a theme she has been particularly drawn to since 2017 during an extended stay in Singapore.
Pinguine leben gefährlich, artwork by Bettina Bucher-Schmidt
Hello Bettina! It is nice to meet you. Starting from your origins, could you retrace the key stages of your career that shaped you into the artist you are today?
I was born and raised in Heilbronn, Germany. From 1984 to 2018 I lived abroad in Belgium, in several African countries and in Singapore. When I moved back to Germany in 2018, I have settled in Wachtberg, North Rhine-Westfalia.
Even before I began my art training, I was interested in constructions, structures, and spaces in both urban environments and nature.
My artistic journey began in Singapore in 2006. There, I studied interior design at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. My final project was a wooden rocking chair. It was the first time I had worked with a material to create a three-dimensional object. That was also when I began exploring oil painting and drawing. I spent the very important years from 2013 to 2018 at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Watermael-Boitsfort in Brussels. Through my part-time studies at the academy, I further developed my practical skills in drawing, acrylic painting, and colour theory. I created my first collages, mixed-media and paper works. I also took classes in art history.
Back in Germany, I continued my art history studies and attended art classes and several workshops at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Together with lecturer Stewens Ragone, I focused on collages and paper art, and with lecturer Heather Sheenan, I created soft sculptures. At the same time, I completed several workshops and a masterclass with lecturer Sati Zech, in which I experimented with space and created objects and installations. Since then, form, space and three-dimensionality have become even more significant in my paintings and collages.
Your style combines a graphic cleanliness with a profound pictorial sensibility. In an increasingly digital and fast-paced art world, what value do you see in creating artworks with a technique like the one you use?
I create art in a traditional way because I consider this approach to be valuable. In an era of seamless digital reproduction, my work operates as an act of material resistance. While screen-based imagery is defined by its absence of physical depth, my approach emphasizes the haptic reality of the object. By foregrounding the irregularity of the manual cut and the relief of layered paper, I produce works that resist replication, exceeding what pixels can simulate.
Interieur 1, 2025
Mixed media
Schräger Vogel, 2023
Mixed media collage
In your works, the forms often seem to float in a dynamic balance. How do you work on the composition to convey this sense of movement, and how much of it is instinctive or planned when you begin a new canvas?
At the beginning, I have a vague idea of what I want to do.
The process is completely open, anything is possible, and basically everything arises from an interplay of planning and instinct. The spontaneous placement of colours and shapes is almost always followed by a review of the rhythm, spacing and size of the elements and colours, as well as the alternation between dense and open areas.
Then comes the adjustment: I shift, change, reduce or intensify – this creates movement in the alternation between action and reflection. In this creative process, a decision is then made as to whether collage elements will be added to the image or disappear again later. How much of an image is planned and how much is created intuitively always varies and cannot be verified retrospectively.
Congratulations again on being selected as a Painting Finalist for the 20th edition of the Arte Laguna Prize! Your work Lollipop has been selected and will be exhibited at the Arsenale Nord of Venice in 2026. How does it feel to be among the 120 participants? Can you tell us any insight about the work we’ll see on display?
I am delighted to have been selected as a finalist for the 20th edition of the Arte Laguna Prize with my work ‘Lollipop’. It is also a wonderful opportunity to be able to show my work at the same time as the 2026 Biennale at the Arsenale Nord.
The artwork took some time to complete. The painting consists of many layers, which give it a profound visual sensitivity. I worked intensively on the juxtaposition and interaction of spaces, shapes and colours. The traces of the various stages of the painting`s creation are visible, but remain enigmatic to the viewers, thus offering additional scope for interpretation. The result is a heterogeneous aesthetic, combined with many possible interpretations. The composition creates a balanced dynamic; everything is intentional and part of the narrative. The petals and different shapes seem to float in space, suggesting movement and freedom. When I showed the artwork to a close friend, she immediately said it should be called “The Act of Creation”. However, I opted for a more associative title, namely a reference to the three motifs of a baby bottle, a lollipop and lipstick, which can be discovered in the lower part of my painting.
Lollipop, 2023
Mixed media collage
Oops! I Did It…!, 2025
Mixed media paint
Exhibiting in Venice is a milestone, but art is a continuous journey. What are the future aims currently driving your creativity, and which new artistic territories are you planning to venture into next?
At first, I would like to expand my cycles “City of the Future” and “Interior Space”. In these series, I plan to combine painting with collage material from structures I have photographed with motifs from nature and public space. In addition, I would like to use the new insights gained in my artistic investigations into further perspectives. I like to imagine these future cities and bring their ideas and concepts to the world through my personal action, that leads to a visual reality detached from the false perfection afforded by digital techniques, which often represent a world too artificial to be real.