About Ursula Cyriax

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Ursula Cyriax creates a seamless unity of word and image. Her work is not about words alone, but about values – distilled, embodied, and given form. At the intersection of typography, sculpture, and conceptual art, she shapes statements into spatial presence. Clear in form, yet open to interpretation. Her works center on terms that capture transformation and touch something essential – bringing them into focus, both visually and intellectually. Presented as photographic prints on Dibond under acrylic glass, they reveal a physical as well as contemplative depth.

Her art is not about retreat, but engagement – with space, with others, with the world. In this spirit, Ursula Cyriax and Johanna Michel founded Atelier m.c. in 1999: a place where art emerges through dialogue, navigating the space between the personal and the collective, in close exchange with artists, curators, critics, collectors, and cultural institutions.

“We can learn to be happy by thinking differently – by shifting our focus,” says Ursula Cyriax.

Since 2013, Atelier m.c. has offered lectures and seminars under the title Happiness by Design, combining artistic reflection with practical life design. This interdisciplinary approach also informs the studio’s many commissioned works for renowned institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery in Berlin, and for companies including Deutsche Bank, Opel, Sony, and Villeroy & Boch.

In her cut-outs, Cyriax transforms words like Change and Dream into floating typographic sculptures – a tribute to the spirit of progress associated with the American West Coast. Her works reference global shifts that originated there – from the moon landing to the digital revolution of Silicon Valley.

Her latest series continues this thread while setting new impulses: Courage, Engagement, and Surprise make visible the core values of social transformation. Boldly typographic, sculpturally precise, and refined with acrylic glass, these works fuse aesthetic clarity with a sense of conviction.

Engagement stands for the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Courage invokes the bravery that initiates all change. Surprise opens the space for wonder – for the lightness we remember from luminous childhood days.

Three words that serve as a compass – in space, in everyday life, and in thought.

VITA

Ursula Cyriax studied Art in Hamburg, Berlin, and New York. Not only does her resume include design work for the Guggenheim Museum, she was also an Art Director for various films and television shows. Cyriax has been exhibiting her work in exhibitions throughout Europe and the USA since the 1970s. She lives and works in Berlin.