NATALIA OSSEF
Natalia Ossef makes work that explores the thin line between historical and contemporary events, and between the individual and the collective. Her intimate quest to trace this line and to flesh out its significance is expressed through sculptures, installations, performance registrations and photographs.
Her works may for instance bear out both the vulnerability and the resilience of an individual embedded in a landscape. Ossef excavates the terrain and sifts through the soil, both literally and metaphorically. What is the significance of existence here, so far away from her birth ground Syria and so far away from the ancient cultures that preceded her people there? Like an archaeologist, she carefully uncovers the successive layers of the past, showing how primordial images continue to resonate in the present.
Her work was recently shown at Bradwolff Projects, Amsterdam and Buitenplaats Doornburgh in Maarssen, The Netherlands. In 2021, parallel to her solo exhibition ‘Reflecting Reflections’ in Central Museum Utrecht, she presented the exhibition ‘Before It Stirs the Surface’ at Movement Exposed Gallery Space. After graduating from the HKU in 2011, Natalia Ossef regularly exhibited in Utrecht and beyond, including in Amsterdam, Basel, Berlin, New York and Paris. Her work is included in public collections, including Centraal Museum Utrecht, ING Art Collection (Netherlands), Eskff Collection (United States) and CCA Andratx (Spain). In 2019, Ossef obtained her Honours Master of Visual Arts at the Sint Lucas School for the Arts in Antwerp.
Natalia Ossef (El Kamechli, 1983) lives and works in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Text courtesy the artist
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