Swiss video artist and photographer Annelies Štrba’s works have become increasingly distant from her early depictions of domestic life. Her new show at Galerie Eigen+Art’s Leipzig location, “My Life’s Dreams”, is a telling indication of where her heart lies now: she has become a storyteller, spinning tales and weaving plots.
Images of sleeping girls feature prominently in the show, evocative of the traditional story of Sleeping Beauty, and suggestive of a desire for the preservation of innocence and wonder. If her “Shades of Time” dwelt on the pressures of motherhood and the burdens of mortality, these images embody a wish not only to escape from them, but also to do so with grace and beauty. There are hints, nevertheless, of the impossibility of such a quest.
These images, which exclude the banality and ugliness of ordinary life as well as every aspect of the masculine, create a realm of ethereal femininity, of powerful dreaming, sleep and unconsciousness. It is a drowsy, heavy and beautiful world, a temporary shelter from the cold gaze of the Grim Reaper.
A screening of Štraba’s films takes place on the show’s opening night, Saturday January 12, at the LURU KINO in Leipzig’s Spinnerei .
Annelies Štrba
My Life’s Dreams
Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig
12 January – 23 February, 2013