Chartings

Esther Ernst is a graphic artist. Her special interest lies in cartographic and travel drawings as well as long-term projects and collections, such as her graphic journals or her archive of index cards. However, she also creates thematic series of drawings. Further fields of activity include text, mural painting, video, and art in architecture.

The Swiss artist’s presentation in the Cabinet of the Museum Franz Gertsch features current works on paper, such as a drawing with text from her scholarship in Istanbul in 2023 and a large-format cartographic drawing of the city of Frankfurt am Main. The artist explores these areas on foot and charts them “en plein air”. Back in her studio, she weaves the collected sketches into large-format “story maps” with room for fear, love, memories, and enthusiasm. Another monumental drawing is dedicated to the years of the Covid pandemic and explores the devastating global effects of the contagious disease. Since 2004 she has been archiving personal notes and photos of exhibitions, concerts, lectures, plays, and other events she visited in her index card collection “wo ich war (where I was)” which is included in the exhibition.

Esther Ernst was born in Basel in 1977. From 1997 to 2006 she studied art and set design at the Zurich and Basel Schools of Design, at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, and at the Berlin University of the Arts (as a master-class student). She regularly receives support for her creative endeavours through work and travel grants, and her works are purchased for both public and private collections. Since the 2000s she has had a steady flow of exhibitions as well as lectures and seminars at home and abroad. The artist lives and works in Berlin and Solothurn.

Anna Wesle curated the exhibition in collaboration with the artist. The accompanying catalogue will be published by modo Verlag, Freiburg i. Br.

To the artist’s website