I have always made things.
As a child in Switzerland, I drew and painted before I had words for why. That pull — toward color, toward beauty, toward what light does when it moves through something — never left me.
I studied biochemistry at Barnard College, fascinated by the invisible architecture of living things. For a few months I tried medical school — and quickly understood it was not answering my inner calling. I turned toward sociology, anthropology, and then followed the deepest pull of all: Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I worked for Christian Marclay, Simon Watson, Peter Halley, and Mary Heilmann. I was fascinated by the lives of female saints, and by the split between sexuality and spirituality — a tension I would spend years learning to dissolve.
Then I went to Tehran.
From 1992 to 1994, I lived in Iran. The colorful play of mosaics, the calligraphy in mosques, the breathtaking landscapes — all of it sensitized me to the invisible world. In a country where every woman covers up, I paradoxically learned to embrace my femininity and my wholeness. I arrived a scientist. I left the beginning of a mystic.
Back in New York, I became interested in using the alphabet and color to restore a sense of sacredness and wonder.
In 1999, I walked the Camino de Santiago.
From the Spanish Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela — alone, on foot, breathing thank you with every step, inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's walking meditation. My intention was to make peace with my Christian roots, after years of exploring Islam, Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.
I felt supported and safe the entire way.
My true epiphany came upon my return, in my studio. I began painting landscapes from photographs taken on the Camino. Faces started to appear in the paintings.
In 2001, the Twin Towers fell.
I lived ten blocks away. Overnight, oil paint — which had been an extension of my fingers — became impossible to touch. I began painting blindfolded, using water-based paint, drawing the outline of a bird in white pencil onto the surface. A move from knowing to unknowing. From outer to inner.
I turned to icon painting and stayed with it for three years. Icons are not painted — they are said to be written. Each one a prayer, a portal, a transmission. That discipline lives in every mandala I make today.
From 1998 to 2011, I taught art and yoga to children and adults in New York.
In private schools, at the YMCA, at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center — I developed and taught a method I called ArtChakraYoga, about the eight knights of love and the doorways in our bodies connecting the physical to the non-physical, the chakras. I witnessed, again and again, the transformation of each person from fatigue and stress to reconnection with Source, peace, love, and health.
During these years I also moved from heavy stretcher bars to hula hoops, stretching fabrics, napkins, ziplock bags across them. I painted my inner landscapes. I sewed spirals. I drew and crocheted mandalas everywhere — on the subway, on airplanes, in waiting rooms. I still do. Not because I am bored. It helps me connect and listen to what is said behind the words.
By 2009, I was painting with both hands —
uniting the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I photographed everything I felt was beautiful and vibrant: a drop of water, an object on the sidewalk, light reflecting on glass.
Beginning with a blank page on the screen, I work from the center outwards, arranging extracted fragments of photographs, positioning each piece to blend with the others — like a drop of paint applied to a surface to achieve a painterly quality. I approach this work with the same mindset of the icon painter, in a state of awe and wonder, one with the breath, in reverence of something much greater than myself.
The great becomes small. The small, big. The mundane, sacred.
In 2010, the kaleidoscopic mandala was officially born.
In 2011, I returned to Switzerland — and the work deepened.
It found its first major homes, including the Clinique de Genolier, one of Europe's finest private medical residences. The years that followed brought exhibitions across Switzerland — in Geneva, Lausanne, Fribourg, Morges, and Rome — and the work continued to grow.
In 2017, before leaving for Los Angeles, I had an exhibition where I lived, in Saint-Prex at the Salle Communale — Araucaria — I showed nearly 100 works in what became more than a retrospective. Two friends built a labyrinth inside the space. Visitors entered, drew a message from a fishbowl, and carried it with them as they walked the labyrinth. At the end, a number led each person to a specific artwork.
Every encounter was different. Every encounter felt fated.
That is what I believe art can do — not just be seen, but meet you. Exactly where you are.
KaleiStars is my offering to the world.
These kaleidoscopic mandalas celebrate our inner beauty — they mirror the magical stuff we are made of, the beautiful beings we truly are, and the breath that connects us all. They are printed on fabric, stretched onto lightboxes, and they glow. In homes, in healing spaces, in high-end residences. Light doing what light has always done — reminding us that beauty is not decoration. It is medicine.
I am also a certified hypnotherapist, a Reiki master, and a yoga teacher. Not separate practices — one. The stillness at the center of a mandala and the stillness at the center of a deep trance are the same stillness.
I am, at heart, a transformation facilitator. A mystic hypno artist who works in light.
I am based between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and I work with collectors, designers, architects, and those who simply know.
If something here resonates — reach out. The right conversation always begins with a feeling.
CV & PRESS
Education
-
Barnard College, BA Biochemistry, 1987
-
School of Visual Arts, BFA Fine Arts, 1991
Selected Exhibtions
Individual
2019 — Love Is Who We Are, Namaste Highland Park, Los Angeles 2017 — Liesse, The Business Harbour, Geneva 2017 — Peintures, œuvres sur papier, KaleiStars, Salle Araucaria, Saint-Prex, Switzerland 2015 — The Spiral to Inner Peace, WIN Conference, Rome, Italy 2015 — Étoiles de lumière, Debiopharm Group, Lausanne 2014 — Amour et lumière, Clinique Générale Ste Anne, Fribourg 2013 — Aime ce que tu désires, Clinique Les Hauts de Genolier, Switzerland 2012 — L'Art d'être présent, Insens, Geneva 2007 — Infinite Bliss, Lolita Bar, New York 2003 — Expressions of Pleasure, Dietz Gallery, New York 2001 — Dialogues between Heart and Mind, 7th & 2nd Gallery, New York 2000 — The Road to Santiago de Compostela, Dietz Gallery, New York 1996 — The Swim Series, Galerie Potterat, Lausanne 1993 — Symphonies in Tiles, 55 Vandam Street, New York
Group
2022 — Le Féminin Sacré, Centre Otium, Geneva 2017 — Perspectives, Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood 2007 — Homegrown, David Krut Projects, New York 1999 — Trippy World, Baron/Boisanté Editions, New York 1993 — The Cadavre Exquis, The Drawing Center, New York 1991 — Women of the 90's, Visual Arts Gallery, New York
Press
2017 — Simone Reymond, Une explosion de Couleurs, Journal de Morges
2016 — Alexandra Budde, Quand la Creation Digitale Tisse des Liens avec une Vision Chamanique, La Côte des Arts
— Les KaleiStars d'Anne-Francoise Potterat, Virginie Claret, La Voix des Femmes
2015 — Kaleidoscopic Mandalas: an interview with yogic artist Anne-Françoise Potterat, gatheryoga.com
2003— The L Magazine
2000 — Ginza, Tokyo
1999 — New York Magazine; The Village Voice
1996 — New York Magazine
— 24 Heures