As a photographer, as an artist, as a woman and mother, I act in this project not only behind but also in front of the camera. Under white cloth, I assume postures reminiscent of iconic representations from art history and reflecting the cycle of life and death - the position of the embryo, the outstretched body of a laid-out corpse.
The photographs of the body hidden under the cloth are reminiscent of shrouded sculptures - whereby my own invisibility serves as a foil in a second working step, on which I arrange symbols of decay into studies of transience. In this way, hybrid motifs emerge that only reveal their morbid details and mythological references upon closer inspection and once again refer to the artist's self-sacrifice.
My research on the themes of transience, farewell, death, transformation, and the perpetuation of past conditions led me to the workshop of a taxidermist, to a taxidermist, and to the apartment of a suicide. In addition, I use my camera to track down the forgotten, the decaying and the lost in urban spaces. In the process, a comprehensive catalog of my own vanitas motifs has emerged over the past twenty years, from which I can draw for my layering and superimpositions.
My search has taken me to Italy again and again, most recently - in 2018, 2019 and 2021 - to Rome.
The key motif for this work is a photograph of an empty cicada shell, which the fully developed insect leaves behind after its final molt: The sight of the abandoned shell, still resembling the animal, triggered in me the chain of thoughts that eventually led to the work with veiling and the staged photograph.
In addition to the large-format photo series of my veils, a wall-filling atlas of hundreds of small-format vanitas motifs will complete the presentation.
