Gisèle Münzner
Switzerland
Gisèle Münzner — Paper Artist and Hydromythologist
"Water leaves a trace of its absence." by Gisèle Münzner
Gisèle Münzner works with handmade paper to investigate what she calls Hydromythology — an artistic field situated between water, physics, mythology and human experience.
Her practice follows water across scales and territories: from a drop to a human body, from clouds to Swiss Alpine lakes, from Swedish streams to the natural pools of Portugal and the sea. She studies water not only for what it represents, but for what it does: how it moves under gravity, changes state, carries matter, sustains life, erodes landscapes and disappears.
At the centre of Hydromythology is the idea of circulation. Water passes continuously between atmosphere, landscape and living bodies. It enters us, becomes part of us and leaves us again. What appears to be an individual body of water is therefore only a temporary state within a much larger cycle.
The gravitational relationship between Earth and Moon introduces another dimension to this research. Science describes the forces that contribute to the tides; Hydromythology transforms this physical relationship into an image of attraction across distance:
The Moon pulls. Water answers.
Münzner approaches scientific knowledge as artistic material. Questions such as how much water a cloud contains, what determines the formation of a drop, or how gravity acts upon liquid matter become starting points for observation and making. Alongside physics and hydrology, mythology provides another way of reading humanity’s long relationship with water.
Handmade paper becomes both medium and evidence. Fibres begin suspended in water, are moved by currents and gestures, settle under gravity, and are fixed through drainage, pressure and evaporation. The substance essential to creating the work is ultimately no longer there.
Water leaves a trace of its absence.
In Münzner’s Water Skin works, paper becomes membrane, sediment and skin. Layering suggests accumulation; ruptures evoke erosion; raised fibres retain traces of movement and pressure. Rather than representing water, the works emerge from processes governed by it.
Hydromythology grew from Münzner’s earlier research into Lachrymology, where the tear became a meeting point between bodily water and emotional experience. The inquiry has since expanded from the intimate scale of a tear towards planetary cycles, gravity and the continuous movement of water through bodies, landscapes and atmosphere.
Hydromythology occupies the territory where the measurable behaviour of water encounters the human need to give it meaning.
Gisèle Münzner
Paper Artist & Hydromythologist
Founder of Paper Lake Studio, Switzerland
paperlakestudio.ch — Paper Art · Handmade Paper · Hydromythology
giselemuenzner.art — Artist Portfolio
squarephoto.ch — Photography
