BIOGRAPHY

Zoé Olsommer grew up in an artistic and art dealer’s family in Switzerland. This inspiring environment, full of museum explorations, exhibition openings and visits to artists’ studios, led her to first study art history and archaeology at École du Louvre in Paris and later ethnology at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Zoé’s heart always balanced between pursuing an academic education and finding a way to express herself more personally and artistically. She eventually decided to devote herself to art, first through the medium of photography. She graduated from the Vevey School of Photography, Switzerland, and participated in several group exhibitions and projections, among others at the Images Festival in Vevey and the Elysée Museum in Lausanne.

Zoé lived in Vietnam for a total of nine years, in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Hội An. It was there that she discovered the refined art of lacquer painting, sơn mài. It is a time-consuming practice. Every layer of lacquer has to dry before applying the next. The natural beauty of lacquer – enhanced by the use of coloured pigments, eggshell, silver and golden leaves, and other materials – reveals all its luminosity and depth once sanded and polished. The sanding process provides Zoé with the same kind of excitement as slowly discovering an emerging image in the darkroom. She studied this demanding sơn mài art form with Saeko Ando, a Japanese artist who has made Vietnam her home and shared some of her secrets.
When she relocated to Penang in 2019, Zoé brought with her all the materials she could in order to pursue her passion for sơn mài, even though the tropical climate of Malaysia is not best suited to it.

Zoé has exhibited her sơn mài artworks during Open Studios Penang in 2022 at Black Kettle and at COEX in Georgetown.
She is currently having her first solo exhibition at Hikayat in Georgetown (November 24th 2024 until January 4th 2025).