From software engineer to artist
Bettina Costa loves the freedom of art
Bettina Costa came to Switzerland from Argentina in 2001 and moved to Rheinfelden in 2006. The artist loves the town and believes that art plays an important role here. She created the first digital Advent calendar for the town of Rheinfelden.
Janine Tschopp — NEUE FRICKTALER ZEITUNG (Newspaper of Frick valley, Switzerland)
Freitag, 19 December 2025
RHEINFELDEN. Anyone visiting Bettina Costa in Rheinfelden is in for a treat: an immersive art experience. From simple objects, like a paintbrush artfully placed on the wall, to her very own Christmas tree adorned with small, colorful baubles. Even her most recent works are impressive in their simplicity. The artist has a fundamental love for the abstraction and the surreal collages are among her favorite creations.
What is the bear doing in Rheinfelden? Bettina Costa created the digital Advent calendar for the city of Rheinfelden as a surreal photo collage. Photo: placed at the disposal by the artist
Why a bear?
Bettina Costa created the collage, which is currently on display as a digital Advent calendar on the Rheinfelden Tourism website, where visitors to the site can open a door every day. «Why is it a bear, of all things, that rises out of the Rhine in front of the Rheinfelden skyline and clings to the oversized cinnamon sticks? In Rheinfelden, you would have expected a goat instead…», the NFZ asked the artist. And this question suits Bettina Costa perfectly. For her, art means being free. «Free from reason and logic, so that the artistic subconscious and spontaneous mood can take control.» This is how she describes her series «Surreal Collage», which includes the abstract image of the digital Advent calendar.
Art discovered early on
Bettina Costa loved drawing and painting even as a child. «Yes, I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands», she explains. She was born and raised in Argentina. Her father – from whom she inherited her talent – was a painter and worked in advertising. When Bettina Costa expressed her desire to become a painter as a teenager, he said, «How do you intend to make a living?». So she studied IT and became a software engineer. But painting and art never left her. It was over 25 years ago that she began to pursue art alongside her work.
In Switzerland since 2001
Love brought Bettina Costa to Switzerland in 2001, first to Laufen. Five years later, the couple found a home in Rheinfelden, where they quickly became happy. She soon discovered the «open studios». She was fascinated by the fact that artists opened their private doors and invited the public to gain exciting insights into their work. Shortly after arriving in Rheinfelden, she met like-minded artists from the region and travelled with them to various art exhibitions in Europe. In 2016, she took part in the cross-border juried group exhibition «Kunst lokal» for the first time. For her first participation, she focused on the famous dance of her homeland, the tango. She brought the «Vereda del Tango» – in various neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires, there are painted areas on the pavement that show the tango steps – to Switzerland for the first time and created the «Vereda del Tango» at the Kurbrunnenanlage in Rheinfelden, 11255 kilometres from Buenos Aires. Her second participation in «Kunst lokal» was based on the theme «Rheinfelden surreal» and dealt with her place of residence in a humorous way. She wanted to show striking corners of the Zähringer town, sometimes as surreal, absurd and grotesque backdrops. «The photo collages are invitations to rediscover Rheinfelden in a whole new way», says the artist.
Argentinian artist Bettina Costa has been living in Rheinfelden since 2006: «Creating things fulfils me.» Photo: Janine Tschopp
Commitment to «open studios»
Since 2001, the Cultural Office in Rheinfelden has organised the «open studios» every two years. Since artists have expressed the desire of this event to take place annually, a new organisation entity was created. Together with Gabriela Lützelschwab and Margrit Imper, Bettina Costa forms the project team that will organise the «open studios» – the largest decentralised art exhibition in the region – every year in future. «The next event will take place on 12 and 13 September 2026», says Bettina Costa happily.
When you meet Bettina Costa, it is clear that she is an artist through and through. «Art just happens», she laughs, adding: «Creating things fulfils me.» The 60-year-old recently took early retirement and can now devote herself fully to her great passion, which has fascinated her since childhood.
Frauen(k)leben Workshop
May 14, 2025
As part of the Frauen(k)leben exhibition at the Swiss National Library, today I had the opportunity to coach a class from the Kirchenfeld secondary school and pass on my experience about working with paper collage. It was great fun!
#swissnationallibrary #womenshistory #womenshistorymonth #collageart #museenbern #museumquartierbern
Association Magidunum presents annual programme 2023
Magden – 28 February 2023
fricktal.info
After a successful year 2022 with two special exhibitions, the Magidunum Association is pleased to present the Dandelion Exhibition with Christine Bühler again this year in addition to the regular seasonal exhibitions in spring, summer and autumn. We will start with the spring exhibition in March.
The following artists will present their works:
Agnes Steinle from Möhlin shows her paintings inspired by nature and everyday life, which she brings to canvas or cardboard with acrylic, ink, charcoal, pencil, pastel chalk and watercolor.
Agnes Keller from Magden combines ceramics with driftwood. She also draws her inspiration from nature. The forest and the lakeshore provide her with the material she needs for her works. Her angel figures are very well known.
Bettina Costa from Rheinfelden, who grew up in Argentina, shows paintings and collages (picture). Her originally realistic style has changed into the abstract. With the theme of tango, she shows movement, passion and music in her works.
The exhibition will take place from 10 to 26 March. On 10 March, there will be a vernissage. Opening hours: Fridays from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays/Sundays from 2 to 5 p.m.
During the exhibition, the village museum is also open. The next exhibition in the Magidunum Museum Gallery will be the Dandelion Exhibition from 31 March to 2 April.
Magidunum Museum Gallery – Spring Exhibition
Magden – Tuesday, 28 February 2023 02:10
FRICKTAL24.ch (Free internet newspaper for the Frick valley, Switzerland / It was discontinued on 30 April 2025)
By: Lana Regtering
After a successful year 2022 with two special exhibitions, the Magidunum Association is pleased to hold the Dandelion Exhibition with Christine Bühler again this year in addition to the regular seasonal exhibitions in spring, summer and autumn.
Detail from the painting Tangollage by Bettina Costa
Starting with the spring exhibition in March, the following artists will present their works:
Agnes Steinle from Möhlin shows her paintings inspired by nature and everyday life, which she brings to canvas or cardboard with acrylic, ink, charcoal, pencil, pastel chalk and watercolor.
Agnes Keller from Magden combines ceramics with driftwood. She also draws her inspiration from nature. The forest and the lakeshore provide her with the material she needs for her works. Her angel figures are very well known.
Bettina Costa from Rheinfelden, who grew up in Argentina, shows paintings and collages. Her originally realistic style has changed to abstract. With the theme of tango, she shows movement, passion and music in her works.
The exhibition will take place from 10 to 26 March. On 10 March, there will be a vernissage.
Opening hours: Fridays from 17:00 to 20:00 and Saturdays/Sundays from 14:00 to 17:00.
The village museum is also open during the exhibition. Come in and be surprised by the Taunerhaus in its original state.
The next exhibition in the Magidunum Museum Gallery will then be the Dandelion Exhibition from 31 March to 2 April.
Magidunum Association
«fricktal24.ch – the online newspaper for Fricktal»
«It’s a game»: this artist turns local landmarks upside down
RHEINFELDEN
Bettina Costa creates collages in which familiar places become a surreal adventure. For this, the artist from Rheinfelden uses paper, scissors, scalpel and glue. But that is not her only form of art.
Peter Schütz — az Aargauer Zeitung
07.02.2022, 05.00
Instead of the sky, a bathing scene as in the Rhine appears above the Feldschlösschen brewery, while in the foreground a puppy gazes spellbound at a billiard ball. Opposite the old town, skiers are enjoying themselves in the sunlit snow, above the tower of the town hall rises a face with closed eyes, into which a mountaineer is sticking his peak.
And on the roof of the Red House on Habich-Dietschy-Strasse in Rheinfelden, a herd of elephants is tramping around, watched by people on a beach that leads right up to the front door. Not far from there, lives the creator of these bizarre pictures: Bettina Costa, born in Rosario, Argentina in 1965, living in Switzerland since 2001 and in Rheinfelden since 2006, adds new perspectives and stories to the «normal» view of local sights.
The 56-year-old artist describes the series called «Rheinfelden surreal» as a «humorous-provocative examination of my place of residence». She uses photos she took herself as a basis, the other elements she takes from magazines.
«I work very precisely, I’m picky»
There is a similar series from Budapest, two others are entitled «Intervenciones» and «Surreal Collage». «It’s a game», says Bettina Costa. A game between inspiration and ideas, perception and the courage to turn familiar things upside down. The art is not only in the pictorial arrangement, but also in the technique. Costa does not make it as easy as the end result may look like.
Some collages are created digitally on the computer in small editions, others as one-of-a-kind pieces entirely done by hand. What the artist needs: «Good paper, good scissors, a good scalpel, good glasses, good light.» Her standards are high. «It must be perfect.» Everything has to be placed appropriately, then comes the most difficult phase: gluing. Costa needs a steady hand for that.
That’s why this work is very well thought out, not at all spontaneous:
«I want things clear.»
And: «I work very precisely, I’m picky.» This also applies to painting, the second pillar of Costa’s artistic cosmos. After a figurative-realistic beginning, she turned to geometric representation. Her painting is reduced to surfaces and lines, motifs are not recognizable.
Although these paintings may also appear to be simple, they are created through long, complex processes. Costa uses tape to achieve the clarity and compositional balance she envisions with paint and brush.
Costa turns recycling into an art form
But what about the thin monochrome canvases on wooden frames, some of which measure more than three metres? In Costa’s flat, two of them hang vertically like beams on a high wall. Apart from a single colour, they contain nothing: no figures, no drawings. In this way, Bettina Costa uses them to divide the space, using architecture as a playground for a few concise interventions.
This is the story behind: in their first life, these canvases were the stage sets of the theater in the hotel owned by the parents of Bettina Costa’s husband, Toni Scherrer, in Laufen. Instead of buying new canvases, Costa took the old backdrops stretched out on simple wooden slats and painted over them.
Thus, Costa turns recycling into a form of art. Speaking of the husband: on the staircase there is a green painting with a red faceless silhouette standing in the centre. Nevertheless, he is recognisable as Toni Scherrer. Here, too, Bettina Costa has achieved a high degree of recognition with minimal means.
«Not always everything must take place in old town center»
Di, 30. Nov. 2021 Neue Fricktaler Zeitung (excerpt)
…The ironic, enigmatic photomontages that Bettina Costa is showing at the exhibition in Rheinfelden also give a lot to explore. In the pictures, the familiar from the cityscape of Rheinfelden mixes with the phatastic from exotic regions. In the middle of Rheinfelden in front of the Red House, for example, you can swim like in the Caribbean and above the Zwimpfer’s Pile-Up building at the Habich-Dietschy-Strasse, jellyfish float like in an underwater world…
Well slumbered: these art pieces had to wait half a year to finally be exhibited
REGIONALE 21
In der Fabrikculture in Hégenheim konnte mit sechs Monaten Verspätung doch noch die trinationale Ausstellung der Regionale 21 eröffnet werden. 73 Künstlerinnen und Künstler aus der Schweiz, Deutschland und Frankreich präsentieren hier noch bis Mitte Juni ihre Werke. Und diese sprechen (fast) alle Sinne an.
Rahel Koerfgen
30.05.2021, 05.00 Uhr
Nach diesem Winter weiss sie, was es heisst, sich in Geduld zu üben. Gerda Maise schlendert in der Fabrikculture, der ehemaligen Textilfabrik vor den Toren Hégenheims, andächtig von einem Kunstwerk zum nächsten. Als die Kuratorin der Ausstellung zu sprechen beginnt, tut sie das in fast schon liebevollem Ton: «Stellen Sie sich vor, all diese Arbeiten haben ein halbes Jahr lang hier in der Fabrikculture vor sich hin geschlummert.» Schlecht sei das nicht, im Gegenteil, sie habe den Eindruck, die Kunstwerke seien mit der Umgebung eins geworden, eine «prächtige Harmonie» sei das.
Ein halbes Jahr lang hat Maise auf diesen Moment, auf diese Synthese der Künste, gewartet; die Ungewissheit sei nicht einfach für sie gewesen, sagt sie. Die Vernissage hätte eigentlich am 29. November 2020 stattfinden sollen, musste coronabedingt aber kurzfristig verschoben werden. Und das nicht nur ein Mal, das habe an ihren Nerven gezerrt, so Maise. Nun war es am vergangenen Sonntag aber soweit, die trinationale Ausstellung in der Fabrikculture gleich nach der Grenze zu Frankreich ist eröffnet.
Dass die Ausstellung nun im Frühling stattfindet, wertet Maise heute als Glücksfall. Jetzt fällt die Ausstellung mit den Ateliers ouverts in Hégenheim zusammen, sodass Kunstinteressierte gleich doppelt auf ihre Kosten kommen. Zahlreiche Studios im Dorf öffnen ihre Türen und gewähren Einblick in ihr künstlerisches Schaffen. So etwa das Künstlerduo Christine Camenisch und Johannes Fetsch, das für seine Video- und Lichtinstallationen bekannt ist. In ihrem Atelier in der Fabrikculture taucht der Besucher denn auch rasch in eine Welt des Licht und Schattens ein; an die Wand projizierte Wellenbewegungen, Wolkenströmungen, die stets im Fluss sind, schaffen das Gefühl, in eine sagenhafte Parallelwelt eingetreten zu sein.
Plastikabfall in der Endlosschlaufe
Auch an der Ausstellung selbst, in der 400 Quadratmeter grossen Halle, fällt eine Videoinstallation auf, wenngleich eine kleinformatigere. Auf der Ablage eines Holzobjekts wird in der Endlosschlaufe eine Aufnahme des mit Plastikabfall versetzten Wassers im Hafen von Rotterdam gezeigt; immer und immer wieder. Kunst, die aufrüttelt, Kunst, die ganz konkret dazu mahnt, sorgsam mit der Umwelt umzugehen. Die Künstlerin Mimi von Moos lebt sowohl in Rotterdam als auch in Basel. Vor bald zwei Jahren hat sie die ehemalige Synagoge in Hégenheim gekauft und daraus ein Kulturzentrum geschaffen. Ein Heimspiel für sie also.
Zu den Höhepunkten der von Gerda Maise konzipierten Ausstellung gehören gewiss auch das Hölderlin-Sofa, eine Installation mit Ton vom iPod von Christine Fausten. Aber auch die Baselbieterhälften auf zehn Cortenstahlplatten, geschaffen vom Geografie-affinen Dadi Wirz, der erst vergangene Woche mit dem Spartenpreis Kunst 2021 des Kantons Basel-Landschaft geehrt worden ist. Ein paar Schritte weiter, im Zentrum des Raums, lassen blau gemusterten Stoffmasken auf einem Wäscheständer erstaunt inne halten. Wie auch die Werke von Susanne Lyner, ein Bild mit geworfenem Acryl, und die Skulptur aus Kastanienholz von Peter Thommen.
Überfordert mit der Weitläufigkeit des Raums
Die Ausstellung, die neben Maise auch von Clément Stehlin von der Fabrikculture betreut wird, präsentiert insgesamt 73 Arbeiten von Künstlerinnen und Künstlern aus Frankreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland. Sie hatten die Möglichkeit, ihr Werk auf gekennzeichneten Feldern im Raum frei zu platzieren. Dies habe laut Maise einige überfordert, «wann kann man schon in einem Raum von solcher Weitläufigkeit ausstellen?» Sie hat es in Hégenheim bestimmt geschafft, dem Geist der Regionale gerecht zu werden, indem sie einen heterogenen Überblick über das aktuelle Schaffen der Künstlerinnen und Künstler der Triregio bietet. Und dieser Überblick zeigt: Dunkle Zeiten wie Corona können der Kunst nichts. Sie blüht weiter. Oder schlummert einfach vor sich hin.
Die Regionale 21 in der Fabrikculture in Hégenheim findet noch an folgenden Daten statt: 29. und 30. Mai, 5., 6., 12. und 13. Juni, jeweils 11 bis 17 Uhr. Eintritt frei. Infos unter www.regionale.org und www.fabrikculture.net
VULVA fanzine – Agenda 2021
Gender, alternative and independent magazine, distributed in Barcelona and Madrid
Zugerbieter Nr 36 – Collages in the smallest space
With a personal technique using collage and acrylic, the artist Bettina Costa succeeds in showing movement, passion and suggestive pictorial compositions in her works. Until Saturday 26 September, the series «Surreal Collage» from Bettina Costa is exhibited at the Kunstkiosk. About these works, the artist writes: «The series is the accidental encounter between reality and dreams.»
Download article (German version)
View original article in German (Zugerbieter Nr 36 – Page 11 – 22-09-2020)
Download article (German version)
View original article in German (Zugerbieter Nr 36 – Page 11 – 22-09-2020)