Renée Chabot is a Swiss visual artist and architect of Dutch, Polish and French origin, holding a Master’s degree in Architecture from ETH Zurich. Her practice works across photography and moving image, rooted in a decade-long engagement with light and layered structures as spatial and conceptual material — a period in which she developed and internationally distributed patented lighting sculptures built on layering, three-dimensional shadow and optical interference. This approach translated directly and in parallel into her photographic practice, where layering became a mode of thinking rather than a technique alone.
This structural logic defines her photographic work, where materialization and dematerialization of reality form her interconnected core concept. Through layering — by multiple exposure, physical layers, or image interference — her work emerges as shifting states that fathom out the boundaries of the photographic image itself, moving in hybrid territory between the pictorial, the sculptural and the moving image — reflecting her own hybrid nature across cultures, interdisciplinary disciplines forming a way of seeing:
Architecture loses its mass, shadows detach from bodies, and surfaces open toward what lies beneath visibility — where presence and absence, the tangible and the immaterial, remain in continuous dynamic relation. Time, movement and layered experience are embedded within the image itself, not represented by it.
Rooted in a humanistic and ecological sensibility, her work engages with the fragile conditions of living systems and the forces that shape and threaten them. It opens a space in which interdependence, vulnerability and transformation become perceptible through the image — where the personal opens toward the universal and the metaphysical.
Her work has been acquired by the Centro Português de Fotografia (CPF), Porto, for the permanent national photography collection of Portugal, and presented there in a dedicated solo exhibition. Her work has been shown internationally at Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles; Encontros da Imagem, Braga; and the Museu de Arte Brasileira, São Paulo.
References
2025 Interview with Hazel Clarke: https://www.thegazemagazine.com/blank-1
2023/2024 Solo exhibition Supraworld, Centro Português de Fotografia (CPF), Porto, Portugal.
2024 Finissage event Supraworld, with invited artists, DJ and catering, CPF, Porto, March 23,
2021 In-visible, Galeria Adorna, Porto, Portugal. (canceled due to pandemic restrictions)
2021 Kolga Tbilisi Photo contest shortlisted “Lifelong confinement”.
2020 Acquisition Centro Português de Fotografia CPF, Porto, Portugal. “Supraworld” for the museum for the permanent National photo collection of Portugal.
2019 Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France. “Supraworld” video, selected by the Arles competition BIOP.
2019 Photoschweiz, Zürich, Switzerland. Group exhibition ‘Photo19’. Multiverse.
2019 London Photo Festival. ‘Directors Choice Series’. Multiverse.
2018 SOLAR Fotofestival, Forteleza, Brazil. Group exhibition ‘Noite Solar’Multiverse.
2017 DaVinci Art Gallery, Porto, Portugal. Solo exhibition. Multiverse and In-between.
2016 Encontras da Imagem International Photo Festival, Braga Portugal.
2016 Prix Pictet nomination by Laura Noble. Multiverse.
2016 FIX Photo Festival, London, UK. Group exhibition “Multiverse” and “In-between”.
2015 Galerie 38 K, Munich, Germany. Group exhibition “Ohne Schatten”.
2015 Grimaldi Forum 9 ème Recontre Artistique, Monte Carlo, Monaco. Group exhibition ‘Monaco-Japon’. In-between.
2008 Galerie Wehrli, Zürich, Switzerland. Solo exhibition. Paysages d’Eau.
2004 Semina Rerum Irène Preiswerk Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland. Portraits of buildings.
2001 UBS Europe, Munich, Germany. Group exhibition ‘Scapes’, architecture photography, curated by Marc Robinov.
Lighting Fairs
2012 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid collection.
2012 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid collection.
2011 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid collection.
2011 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid collection.
2010 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid collection.
2010 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid collection.
2010 Lighting Fair, Hong Kong. In.grid collection.
2010 Onaris, Bern, Switzerland. In.grid collection.
2009 Euroluce, Milan, Italy. In.grid VIP collection.
2009 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid VIP collection.
2009 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid VIP collection.
2008 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid collection.
2008 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid collection.
2008 Lighting Fair, Hong Kong. In.grid collection.
2007 Euroluce, Milan, Italy. In.grid VIP collection.
2007 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid VIP collection.
2007 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid VIP collection.
2007 Onaris, Bern, Switzerland. In.grid VIP collection.
2006 Maison et Objet, Paris, France. In.grid VIP collection, distributed by Neweba.
2006 Ambiente International Frankfurter Messe, Frankfurt, Germany. In.grid VIP collection, distributed by Neweba.
2006 100% Design, London, UK. In.grid VIP collection, distributed by Neweba.
2006 Onaris, Bern, Switzerland. In.grid VIP collection, distributed by Neweba.
2005 Euroluce, Milan, Italy. In.grid VIP and Trans.lucy collections.
2002 ETH Zürich McKinsey & Company Business Plan Competition, Zürich, Switzerland. Group exhibition of 25 finalists. Honorary Mention for the invention and business concept of the patented In.grid layered and touch-interactive lighting sculpture collection.
2001 Colette lifestyle boutique, Paris, France. Product launch and first-time exposure. In.grid VIP collection. Lighting In.grid and Trans.Lucy with registerd patents
Installations
2006 Hennessy, Cognac, France. In.grid lighting sculpture prototype.
2004 Museu da Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, São Paulo, Brazil. Group exhibition ‘Illuminar Design da Luz 1920-2004’, sponsored by Centre George Pompidou Paris, Vita Museum Basel and Musée des Arts décoratifs Paris. In.grid collection.
2004 Zürich City Public Swimming Pool, Switzerland. Entrance window facade. Giant aquarium photo sponsored by Speedo. Indoor and outdoor ambient-lighting concept in collaboration with Reto Frigg Architects, sponsored by Hallenbad City.
Selected Commercial Photography
2000-2013 “Speedo, UBS Bank, Julius Baer Bank, Clariden Leu Bank, Vischer Law Firm. Marketing and portrait photography.Zero” fashion company, 2 year commission b&w architecture and plant photography for their stores & offices in different cities in Germany and Vienna Austria.
2001-2003 ETH Zürich, Battaillard, CMB business management consultants, PSP Swiss Property and further commissions including Real estate, marketing and portrait photography.
1986-1989 Ringier Newspapers, Zürich, Switzerland. Freelance press photography.
1986 Nicolaus Stauss press photography, photographing for local News Papers,Theater, Music and Portraits, darkroom and archive work.
1985-1986 Modus Vivendi Art Gallery. Commissioned vernissage photographer for Aytun Altinedal.
Patents
1998 applied and 2000 Registered patent for lighting invention In.grid, based on layers, 3-dimensional shadows and optical illusions.
2000 Registered patent for lighting invention Trans.lucy, based on optical illusions.
Grants & Artist Residency
2002 Aga Ousseinov, New York, USA. Collaboration of Earth Sky Chair prototype.
1996 Studio St Claire Cemin and Studio Aga Ousseinov, sculptors, New York, USA. Artist residency.
1995/96 Smith-Miller and Hawkinson Architects, New York, USA. Architecture.
1993/1994 CEPT Architecture University, Ahmedebad, India. Grant for the winter semester.
Education
1998 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH-Zürich, Switzerland. MA Architecture, BA Engineering.
1990 École supérieure des Arts Visuels (ESAV), Geneva, Switzerland.
1987-1990 Ringier News papers Zürich.
1986 Nicolaus Stauss Photography, Zürich Switzerland. Pressagency.