Sylvie Eyberg

Sylvie Eyberg was born in 1963. She currently lives in Brussels (Belgium).

Since the late 1980s, Sylvie Eyberg has worked on the interplay of images and words. She is mostly known for her precise and enigmatic combinations of black and white or monochromatic pictures with fragments of texts. Both elements usually come from magazines, books, and other printed material, and are then carefully selected and reframed, sometimes enlarged.

In some way related to the tradition of photomontage, these works express a strong sense of composition. The black and white tonality and the scarcity of depicted elements also contribute to a sense of austerity. But at the same time, the viewers/readers will quickly find themselves absorbed into the very texture of images and words. Magnetized by the muffled indetermination that permeates the works, they try to make sense of the suspended gestures and accidental aphorisms, the dreamlike figures and the poetic stuttering.

In addition to these works made using a wide range of printing techniques (photography, silkscreen, heliogravure, inkjet, and offset, among others), the artist has produced a series of films that extend and displace her interest into the relation of images to literature. These films are also an affectionate homage to cinema­, to its rich history and its ability to fire up our imagination.

Let us also mention that Sylvie Eyberg generously conceived the text-work that serves as Keijiban’s logo—a carefully carved paragraph from a text dedicated to Ozu’s Tokyo Story.

At the invitation of curator Thierry de Duve, she represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 2003, together with Valérie Mannaerts.

Her recent shows include Spatial Bias, Lesage, Brussels, Belgium, 2021; Vu.e de dos, Le Delta, Namur, Belgium, 2020; Half-title, Shanaynay, Paris, France, 2018; descendant, Institut de Carton, Brussels, Belgium, 2018; 2. bleu et vert, (SIC), Brussels, Belgium, 2014.

Sylvie Eyberg is represented by Galerie Greta Meert in Brussels.