Astrid Krehan - The Journey &
Thomas Gust - Appearance

Exhibition:
November 27, 2026 to January 16, 2027

Opening:
Thursday, November 26, 2026, 18.30h
Introduction by Catrina Sonderegger, free curator

Artist Talk with Astrid Krehan:
Saturday, December 5, 2026, 15h

Artist Talk and lecture with Thomas Gust:
Saturday, December 12, 2026, 15h

Finissage:
Saturday, January 16, 2027, 13-17h

Opening hours:
Wednesday to Friday 17-19h
Saturday 13-17h
or by appointment

From 27 November 2026, Galerie 94 in Baden will be presenting a double exhibition featuring works by Astrid Krehan and Thomas Gust. Under the title ‘The Journey’, Astrid Krehan will be exhibiting six series that trace the course of life through its various phases – from the search for direction and decision-making, through connection and love, to experience, wisdom and happiness. Under the title ‘Appearance’, Thomas Gust presents three groups of works that straddle the boundaries between photography and painting: delicate Polaroid images on hand-coated Awagami paper, views of Hong Kong reworked with acrylic paint, and reinterpreted historical Japanese studio photographs. Both artistic approaches invite the viewer to experience photography not as a static representation, but as a living space of resonance for memory, experience and personal interpretation.

Astrid Krehan

Astrid Krehan is a German visual artist who uses photography as her medium of expression. Using colour, structure and pattern as the foundation of her artistic language, she creates visual compositions that encourage viewers to look beyond first impressions and discover the common threads that connect us. Her fascination with colour began during her Waldorf education, where she was introduced to Goethe's Theory of Colours. Through art and physics classes, she developed a lasting interest in colour, complementary colours, and the way colour influences perception and emotion. Later, during her career as a scientist, she was regularly exposed to electron microscope images that revealed hidden structures and intricate patterns, leaving a lasting impression on the way she sees the world. It was in Shanghai, where Astrid moved in 2014, that her fascination with colour, structure and pattern merged, allowing her to translate the world as she perceived it into visual art. During COVID, her creative process with the camera became a therapeutic medium, allowing her to temporarily disconnect from the outside world. It also shifted her focus towards environmental awarenawareness, as it had almost disappeared from the world's radar. Returning to Europe in 2021 broadened her perspective once again. Drawing on experiences from both East and West, her work seeks to build cultural understanding by revealing the connections that exist beneath apparent differences.

Artist Statement
I explore how we perceive the world and the connections that exist beneath apparent differences. I believe East and West meet through shared emotions and interests that connect us all. Through my work, I hope to foster understanding and connect people across cultures.

The Journey
Life unfolds through many moments along the way, each bringing new possibilities. The Journey brings together six series that reflect different phases we encounter in life. At times our perception shifts and reality feels unfamiliar. Sometimes we find ourselves in a labyrinth, searching for direction, until we reach a verge where a decision must be made. Along the way we experience connection, friendship and love, each adding depth to our path. With every step we gather experience. Through these experiences we gain wisdom, and with that wisdom we begin to recognise the joy and happiness that life holds.

Series WISDOM 2025
The ability to see in darkness gives the owl a strong symbolic meaning across cultures. In the Western world, the owl stands for wisdom, knowledge, and clarity of perception. In many Eastern traditions, it represents protection, intuitive guidance, and transformation. Interpretations may differ, yet a shared essence remains: heightened awareness beyond the visible. The owl represents deep awareness. It calls for trust in intuition and attentiveness to what lies beneath the surface. Created from the ice sculptures of the Vail, Colorado Ice Festival in 2025, WISDOM draws its colour effects from the illuminated sculptures, intensified through special camera techniques and in-camera multi-exposure.

Series SHADES OF LOVE 2025
Love is not a single color, nor confined to one form. It shifts, evolves, and reveals itself through the relationships that shape us. Fierce or gentle, quiet or enduring, some bonds deepen, others transform, yet their essence remains. There is no singular definition of love. It lives in friendship, in family, in intimacy, and in those rare connections that change while holding their depth. Each shade is distinct, yet all are part of the same human experience. Love, in its many forms, is what accompanies us and stays. SHADES OF LOVE marks a studio-based work, created by draping coloured paper into a deliberate formation. Through incamera multi-exposure and refined photographic techniques, layered patterns and chromatic nuances emerge, shaping the visual language of the series.

Series LABYRINTH 2024
Life is a labyrinth, a path that unfolds with unexpected twists and turns yet always carries us forward. Each step holds a meaning, even when its purpose is not immediately clear. It is a winding journey that invites us to pause, reflect, and embrace what is revealed along the way. The series reflects a personal journey of unexpected twist and turns with a still undefined purpose. Created at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, LABYRINTH arises from the combination of in-camera multi-exposure and refined photographic techniques, which create a distinctive interplay of pattern and colour that shapes the visual language of the series.

Series THE VERGE 2025
Life often brings us to a point where everything changes. This series reflects such moments — when one path turns or suddenly connects with another. The dots become traces of movement, like signposts marking a drastic shift. They are not endings, but beginnings. Standing at the verge means stepping into something new, uncertain yet full of possibilities Created at the Fosun Foundation in Shanghai, THE VERGE arises through subtle camera movements and in-camera multiexposure. Curved pathways emerge, shaping the visual language of the series.

Series DISTORTED REALITY 2023
Everything we hear is an opinion not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective not the truth.Marcus Aurelius
Created from the undulating mirror surface of the Temple of Lights in Shanghai, the work engages distorted reflections of passersby. In-camera multi-exposure and controlled overexposure intensify the mirror effect, generating lines and patterns that center the work on the reflective surface.

Series JOY 2021
Bright and vivid colours are often seen as symbols of joy and happiness and they are associated with positive emotions and energy. Joy is one of the most important aspects of life. It can be found in small as well as big things, Joy can be what makes life worth living. When we focus on joy, we are able to let go of the unnecessary complexities and stressors in our lives. We are able to see the beauty in the world around us, and we are able to appreciate the little things that make life so special. To find joy in life, we need to focus on the present moment. We often get caught up in worrying about the past or the future, but when we are able to be fully present in the here and now, we are able to truly experience the joy that life has to offer. Created in Danian, Guangxi, China, JOY draws from the colourful fabrics of the Miao. Deliberate camera movement across the material forms the visual language of the series.

Thomas Gust
Galerie 94 presents the exhibition Appearance, featuring works by Thomas Gust. For the first time in Baden, the three bodies of work Appearance, Hong Kong Romance, and Costumes are shown together—three photographic series that explore, in different ways, the relationship between memory, materiality, and photographic reality.
All three series share an interest in the surface of the image, while each follows a distinct path. Whereas Appearance uses light, reduction, and materiality to place the photographic image in a suspended state between representation and abstraction, Hong Kong Romance and Costumes extend photography through painterly interventions, creating new hybrid forms of image-making. In this process, the image becomes a carrier of personal and historical traces of memory, of longing, loss, and transformation.

Appearance
In the series Appearance, landscapes, trees, bodies of water, and changing light become vessels for inner images. Created with a Polaroid camera, the photographs are closely connected to the artist’s biographical memories and to the stories that gradually gather around those memories over time.
The locations do not appear as clearly defined documents, but rather as shifting images of remembrance in which closeness and distance, liberation, loss, and longing overlap. Printed on Japanese Awagami paper and hand-coated with albumen, the works acquire a fragile surface that oscillates between photography and painting.

Hong Kong Romance
Hong Kong Romance was created during an extended stay by the artist in Hong Kong. Photographic views of architecture, landscapes, and urban spaces are reworked with acrylic paint and transformed into new topographical pictorial spaces.
Trees, blossoms, and vegetal forms intervene in the photographic order. The works also evoke nineteenth-century Romanticism, in which landscape and flora were understood not merely as visible nature, but as expressions of inner feeling.
The works thus become a distinctive form of contemporary panel painting, in which photography, painting, memory, and subjective perception intersect. The series is both a declaration of love to Hong Kong and an attempt to capture a city that resists any final or definitive description. The works have previously been exhibited in Hong Kong alongside works by Fan Ho and Greg Girard.

Costumes
The starting point for the series Costumes is a group of Japanese studio photographs dating from the late nineteenth century. These staged portraits of geishas were originally produced in large editions for travellers and were marketed as so-called “costumes.” They played a significant role in shaping the Western image of Japan.
Thomas Gust reworks these historical photographs with acrylic paint. The painterly interventions remove the portraits from their original context and translate them into a contemporary visual language situated between history, abstraction, and cultural projection. The series has previously been presented at Photo Basel and KunstRAI Amsterdam.
Together, the three bodies of work create a field of tension between the fleeting nature of the Polaroid, the transformation of topographical spaces, and the painterly reinterpretation of historical photographs. Photography appears here not as an immutable document, but as a living repository in which personal experience, history, materiality, and art continually enter into new relationships.