Natascha Niederstrass’ photography and installations are steeped in the symbolic interrelationships she observes in visual culture and history. She constitutes narratives of phenomena marginalized by the dominant discourse, in the hopes of reclaiming a place for them in our perceptions of reality. Using video, photography and installation, Natascha Niederstrass’ weaves references between art history, news, crime scene and horror cinema. She emphasizes the ambiguity of signs and cultural codes accepted as truths that are deceptive compared to a reality that escapes us.
Fascinated with narrative issues, she explores the possibilities offered by reconstruction methods, skillfully operating in the margins between truth and fiction. Niederstrass often chooses to use a forensic aesthetic, for it serves both as an approachable way for the general public to pry open the hermetic shell of contemporary art, and as a viable critical model for understanding art that relies on clues, obscurities, and residue. Niederstrass takes the viewer through the exciting process of reconstructing a story, a scene, a speculative action or an event excluded from the "visible."
A graduate of Concordia University in Montreal (BFA) and York University in Toronto (MFA), Natascha Niederstrass has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and artist-run centers. Her work is included in the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d'art de Joliette, the National Bank of Canada, the City of Longueil, and the City of Laval. She has completed a residency at VU Photo in Quebec City in June 2021 to develop a new body of work which was presented in 2022 as part of the 10th edition of the Manif d'Art de Québec. In the winter of 2021, she took part in a research residency at Centre SAGAMIE in collaboration with Saguenay artist Caroline Fillion. The result of their research was presented at Occurrence - espace d'art et d'essai contemporains and at Centre SAGAMIE. Her first artist book, Stress aigu, was published by Les Éditions Rodrigol in early 2022. She began a new collaboration with Galerie Patrick Mikhail in Montreal at the end of 2022 by presenting her body of work Escamotage d'une femme. In the fall of 2024, the Galerie Patrick Mikhail will invite her back to present a brand new body of work entitled Ruinenlust and the Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne (MAC VAL) will soon present her work as part of a major group exhibition curated by Nicolas Surlapierre, Director of the MAC VAL and Vincent Lavoie, Full Professor in the Department of Art History at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
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