"Passionate about gardening, I one day started taking pictures of private gardens to capture all the details and moments of wonder I feel in front of these pieces, when the symbiosis of the man-made touches and the beauty of nature create magic. The series “Aimée à mort” brings together photographs and embroideries. Each stitch tells its story. Each time I pierce the paper to create these delicate embroidered knots of colour, I make a wish. I intentionally removed the colours of the original photographs to plunge into eternity and let the flowers die metaphorically. Then I offer them a new life, ethereal, resuscitating them by colouring in parts of the photographs with pastels and ink. Each image is unique and charged with secrets and emotions. One after the other, they form a thread of life, of emotions and memories.”
Of Dutch heritage, the photographer Aimée Hoving was born in 1978 in Belgium, before settling in Switzerland at an early age. Bridging two cultures – not really Dutch (she never lived there), nor really Swiss (she is not naturalized) – she carries in her a bit of both. Aimée Hoving studied at the École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne and obtained a BA in visual communication with a specialisation in photography. She loves nature, passionately, and beautiful things that have their own story to tell, but it is mostly people and their stories that fascinate her.
Aimée has a penchant for portraying her family and friends, in their own surroundings. She works in the tradition of the Great painters: The court portraits of Velázquez, the distinct light of a Vermeer. Aimée has confronted her own shadows and brought them into light. There is a touch of alchemy in her work.
Aimée Hoving has participated in several international group exhibitions and has been granted the Swiss Design Award and won the Leenards FoundaMon Award. Her work is part of the permanent collections of museums and is found in private collections. In 2023, three of her large works were shown at the group exhibiMon “Civilization: The Way We Live Now”, at Saatchi Gallery in London, UK.
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