RhoForma STORY
Yulia Parfenova is a contemporary artist based in Switzerland who uses geological memory as a central theme in her artistic exploration.
I approach my art practice as a means to study and renegotiate the relationship between human agency and natural world. Through the lens of geological memory, I investigate processes that precede and exceed human intention. Rather than depicting nature as a fixed image, I set up conditions in which physical forces transform matter over time and allow a form without imposed composition to arise. In doing so, I seek to shift attention from representation toward direct encounter with nature.
By withdrawing from direct control, I challenge the sole authorship of artist and affirm the instability and dynamism of natural systems. My work invites viewers to perceive complexity, transience, and decay not as abstract concepts, but as tangible material realities of the world of which they are inseparably a part. Within the discourse on sustainability, I, as both artist and human, acknowledge myself as a contingent participant in systems I cannot fully govern and comprehend.
In searching for the “patterns which connect” humanity and the natural world, I chose salt as my primary medium. Formed through mineral processes, essential to life, and historically extracted, traded, and used for preservation, it bridges earth systems and everyday experience for me. Its familiarity becomes a point of entry: I begin with a material the viewer already knows and, through it, encourage a shift of focus toward the larger forces that shape our shared world.
My technique stems from close observation of how inorganic matter responds to changing climatic conditions and forms landscapes. With erosion and layering as my primary methods, I treat water and time as active agents—quiet yet persistent forces—and use salt to record the transformations they enact. Using the resulting three-dimensional topographies I would like to bring viewers into contact with the more-than-human world—through material presence, naturally occurring patterns, and raw tactility.
ABOUT ME
Originally trained as a scientist — first in chemistry (MSc), then in biology (PhD) — I understand my art practice as a continuation of the laboratory work, in which working with natural materials and experimental processes plays a central role. My artistic language was shaped during her training at Janka Stemmle’s atelier, where I was focusing on experimental mixed-media techniques and the development of my own approach.