The context

Avenue Aristide Briand was the most prosperous and attractive street in Mulhouse. Renowned for its Christmas illuminations, reflecting dreams and beauty, it attracted residents of the city and the entire southern Upper Rhine.

Today, it is no longer at the heart of the illuminations that are refocused on the city centre. Over the years, it has become a pauperized, marginalized street, whose heterogeneous population is made up of many nationalities that drive most of its businesses. A street in search of a new way of life that reflects a positive image of its diversity.

The patrons therefore wanted to restore meaning to this artery, restore a "flow" and make it a significant entrance to the city by its originality... or to quote iun sponsor: "Give Briand back its brilliance".

For this reason, the idea was born to entrust an artist with the realization of store blinds and wall paintings on a few building gables.

The commission

Sophie von Hellermann, whose paintings take the form of very large watercolours with subjects from the contemporary world as well as from dreamlike literary worlds, has empathetically accepted to work on creating the "motifs" of these impressions of fabrics - an industry of which Mulhouse was for a long time the world capital - for blinds and to paint large related frescos.

Sophie von Hellerman

Sophie von Hellermann was born in 1975. She lives in England. His paintings are easily identifiable by their unique style and are featured in many recent institutional exhibitions. She works with the Green Naftali Gallery in New York and Vilma Gold Gallery in London.