Born in Tyrol, Verena Tscherner came to Vienna shortly after graduating from high school. She studied
at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (MDW), where she graduated in 2014. Afterwards she studied at the Friedl
Kubelka School, School for Artistic Photography in Vienna, which she graduated in 2019 with a diploma. Then she studied digital
art with Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. Ruth Schnell and UBERMORGEN at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and graduated in
June 2024. She lives and works as a freelance artist in Vienna.
During her residency at AIL Verena Tscherner will
produce a new installation for her upcoming exhibition at
Frau* schafft Raum.
She will experiment with different breathing patterns of the deflateables. At the same time Tscherner will further work with
directional speakers and wants to try different texts, voices, atmospherical sounds and music to see how these sounds may
alter the room they are placed in. She will also have her first deflatable inhale.deflate set up at her temporary studio at
AIL. Tscherner is interested to open up a dialogue about contemporary art and how it affects the observer.
Verena
Tscherner experiments with the idea of the vacuum as a way to capture a moment, as a delay of decay, as „holding one‘s breath.“
The aspects of air and vacuum are increasingly gaining new, expanded meanings in her artistic process. inhale. deflate marked
the beginning of her engagement with the genre of sculpture and spatial installation. In her diploma thesis entangle. deflate
she combined 3D-printed objects with a large-scale deflateable and a sound installation. This large-scale deflateable is sculpturally
placed in the space. It takes on an organic character as air is repeatedly added or removed from it using a timer. Breathing
as a connecting element. The individual breathes, the community breathes. In meditation, people consciously focus on breathing,
a process that usually happens unconsciously. The deflateable consciously and unconsciously soothes the breathing of the viewers.
A space for relaxed togetherness can emerge, a space for collective consciousness opens. The contents are absorbed emotionally
and unconsciously into one‘s awareness, to then continue working in the subconscious, to be reflected upon alone or with others
at the right moment. Deflateable, an object is deprived of air to allow it a kind of „exhale.“ As a result, the objects within
begin to move, approaching the viewers, only to withdraw again. The sculpture is artificially „brought to life“ in order to
connect with the viewer through their own empathy. A cycle of tension (vacuuming) and relaxation (letting go through stopping
the vacuuming) emerges, imitating the living in order to turn the viewers‘ gaze inward. The body itself becomes an individual
instrument of insight.
