Based on the size of XL king-size duvets, Vanessa Disler’s “Sleep Script Paintings” treat the bed as a site in which the unconscious mind is revealed. Desire, fear, and repressed drives are all expressed in the realm of sleep, our body following a hidden script that can be read in the imprints it leaves behind. At the Swiss Art Awards, Disler presents three paintings that evoke this altered state, offering a pre- (or post) linguistic space of ecstatic experience, a portal into another realm. At the same time, Disler’s gestural mark making builds its own kind of syntax, creating a notation of sorts, a script that has not yet been deciphered.

Born 1987 in Vancouver, Canada. Disler’s practice is primarily centered on painting, exploring themes of abstraction, authorship, and signature within a modernist framework. Her approach integrates elements of feminism and psychoanalysis, using painting to process personal and subjective experiences. Her gestural paintings and steel sculptures take a nuanced approach to expression, often incorporating motifs and symbols from cultural memory and personal history.

— Chloe Stead