In the video work “I’m thinking about Inheritance”, Selina Trepp paints and overpaints her reflection on a see-through mirror as she reflects on her origins, inherited values, art and family. Selina Trepp, like her mother and grandmother an artist, became a mother a year ago. Over the course of a year and during her pregnancy, she created several short videos in which the artist creates a self-portrait.
The painted mirror is a reflector of the self and the base for something new. Everything new emerges from what already exists, forms a chain of life, and continues to write the history of generations. Skills and values are passed on, but so are expectations and traumas. The artistic self-portrait, a classic motif in painting, poses the question of one’s own identity and – in the process of painting – of the perception of the self in space and time.
In message salon, the artist shows herself in her video installation in a chronological order of eight self-portraits painted on glass, all of which only exist on video and are then wiped away.
The artist Selina Trepp is an early and constant companion of message salon. Today she lives and works between Zurich and Chicago and performs with her husband Dan Bitney, drummer of the US band Tortoise, with the audiovisual project “Spectralina” in art spaces in the USA, Switzerland and Brazil.