Opening reception
Thursday, 12 March 2026, 5–8 p.m.

Exhibition
12 March – 27 March 2026
Tuesday to Thursday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Grisebach Switzerland
Bahnhofstrasse 14, 8001 Zurich

Contact
Michèle Sandoz
Managing Director
michele.sandoz@grisebach.com 
T +41 44 212 88 88

Grisebach Switzerland is pleased to present the final episode of the Travel logs series: Travel logs #7 – Shapes of the Unknown.

Curated by Dorothea Strauss, the exhibition brings together works by artists Maria Ceppi and Tessa Whitehead, created specifically for this exhibition.

It is dedicated to the in-between – the space between perception and intuition, where change emerges. Shapes of the Unknown is a collaboration between Dorothea Strauss and Michèle Sandoz.

The exhibition 'Shapes of the Unknown' presents works by artists Maria Ceppi and Tessa Whitehead. It is dedicated to that which lies beyond control: the liminal state between perception and intuition, where change arises. 

Here, the unconscious is not presented as a romantic refuge, but as an ever-changing, occasionally daunting realm of exploration comprising memories, interpretations, fears, and images. It operates beneath the surface, influencing perception and shifting the boundary between inside and outside.

The works of Maria Ceppi and Tessa Whitehead approach the unknown from different angles. What connects them is their focus on the in-between: transitions and states in which meaning has not yet been established.

Swiss multimedia artist Maria Ceppi studied at the École cantonale d'art du Valais (ECAV, now EDHEA) in Siders/Sierre and at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris.

Through her Hybrid Shapes and Objets Cultes, Ceppi has developed a distinctive body of work that is gaining increasing attention in the Swiss and international art scenes. Her extensive projects in public spaces also reveal a unique language through which she responds to the location's history.

Her recent solo exhibitions at the Fabian Lang Gallery in Zurich and the Kunstmuseum Thurgau, as well as her extensive current publication by Scheidegger & Spiess, edited by Mirjam Fischer, have attracted considerable attention.

Maria Ceppi's works resonate with our contemporary world. Her sculptures and objects — made from everyday items or a combination of bronze, aluminium, cast stone, wood, or materials from space technology — defy simple categorisation. They are both familiar and foreign, poetic and resistant. It is precisely this ambivalence that makes them resonate with questions that are more urgent today than ever: how do we deal with uncertainty? What is the significance of the unpredictable? And how can we marvel at something without immediately wanting to explain it?

The concept of the 'unavailable', developed by the sociologist Hartmut Rosa, plays a central role in experiencing Ceppi's work. They do not demand that we understand or categorise them. Instead, they invite us to engage in an experience that is both unsettling and inspiring. It is in this creative moment that our gaze opens up, revealing new connections within ourselves and between ourselves and the world. 

Tessa Whitehead, a Bahamian artist born in Nassau in 1985, studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and the Slade School of Art in London. She then returned to the Bahamas, where she currently resides and works.

Her work, most recently exhibited at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and her Nassau gallery, Tern, occupies a significant position in contemporary Caribbean art.

As a multimedia artist, Tessa Whitehead explores the dialogue between her inner experiences and the tropical landscape in her work. In her paintings, drawings, and sculptures, she combines and contrasts elements of the Bahamian landscape with surreal figures and family portraits. The result is an autobiographical perspective on femininity and womanhood.

Six recent paintings bring to life a world where memory, threatening emotions, bodies, and landscape merge in the Grisebach exhibition. Using muted tones and impasto layers, Whitehead creates scenes that appear less like narratives and more like memories. Female figures, shadows, plants, and inner demons merge into a liminal state that transcends fixed boundaries. 

Rather than through abstraction, Whitehead's painting deals with the invisible through dissolution. She removes the fixed contours of things, thus making the in-between visible — the moment when perception is not yet fixed. Her works lead into a world where light becomes memory, and memory becomes light. They are thus exemplary of the leitmotif of 'Shapes of the Unknown': recognition through that which eludes us.