“These depictions take the viewer outside the realm of normative representation, where bodies are without organs, and therefore freed, or cut, from the traditional definitions of beauty” - Amanda Cachia, Wallpaper* Art Special 2021
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" On a formal level [Bettina von Zwehl's 'Sessions'] reference the eighteenth century practice of silhouette portraiture—a pre-photographic and inexpensive means of capturing a person’s likeness using black paper and scissors—which [the artist] reinterprets using collage, cutting, and tearing.
In Cut Out #12, a series of six organic pod-like forms connected to a spindly stalk have been cut away from the portrait. In this configuration, the phytoid stem has replaced the person’s spine and the seed vessels their organs. The merging of animal and plant forms links this work to the category of zoophytes, of which the Scythian lamb—the body of a lamb connected to the ground via a fibrous stalk—was a prime example. Zoophytes like other objects that confounded immediate understanding held a special place in Wunderkammern as they confused the categories of animal, vegetable, and mineral. Other works in this series such as Cut Out #22, are more decorative in effect. Here the negative and positive space confuses the identity of the image as it flexes back and forth between a portrait and a leafy plant. As a result of its ornamental arrangement, it resembles the category of hybrid objects that fused the natural with the human-made."
- Chiara Ennis, Extract from the essay 'Polysemy, Hybridity and Scale in Bettina von Zwehl's Wunderkammer' from the catalogue 'Bettina von Zwehl: Wunderkammer'
" On a formal level [Bettina von Zwehl's 'Sessions'] reference the eighteenth century practice of silhouette portraiture—a pre-photographic and inexpensive means of capturing a person’s likeness using black paper and scissors—which [the artist] reinterprets using collage, cutting, and tearing.
In Cut Out #12, a series of six organic pod-like forms connected to a spindly stalk have been cut away from the portrait. In this configuration, the phytoid stem has replaced the person’s spine and the seed vessels their organs. The merging of animal and plant forms links this work to the category of zoophytes, of which the Scythian lamb—the body of a lamb connected to the ground via a fibrous stalk—was a prime example. Zoophytes like other objects that confounded immediate understanding held a special place in Wunderkammern as they confused the categories of animal, vegetable, and mineral. Other works in this series such as Cut Out #22, are more decorative in effect. Here the negative and positive space confuses the identity of the image as it flexes back and forth between a portrait and a leafy plant. As a result of its ornamental arrangement, it resembles the category of hybrid objects that fused the natural with the human-made."
- Chiara Ennis, Extract from the essay 'Polysemy, Hybridity and Scale in Bettina von Zwehl's Wunderkammer' from the catalogue 'Bettina von Zwehl: Wunderkammer'