MUTTERMILCH
The exhibition is composed of images which live on the verge of abstraction, refer to a child’s perception. These images exist as a memory, remnants of a state between wakefulness and sleep. There are also the landscapes which are not material, but they merge fragments and places taken from memory and imagination. They refer to the space of the original identity. They relate to what is hidden, what’s underneath, what’s at the root.
In the beginning there is mother’s milk, which is everything: relief, security, warmth, innocence, satiety, love, falling asleep, awakening, first memory, the greatest longing, desire, intimacy and fulfillment. In mother’s milk the boundaries of sleep and wakefulness dissolve. It is neither warm nor cold. A baby feels safe and secure when the mother’s breast milk supply is there. But once it’s cut, there is nothing but worry and terror, hunger and pain, emptiness and unknown.
When I was a child, I thought I heard how the earth spins. I’d closed my eyes and felt dizzy and lightheaded, as if I could feel the movement.
The children remain as if in the fog. Childhood is neither easy nor safe, filled with insecurity, misunderstanding and loneliness. Lengths and distances are not yet easy to interpret or not easy or to measure. The child pays attention to a specific image and object, tries to find out how they move, through the fragmentary interpretation tries to find out how the world works. What the child sees and how they see it isn’t yet burdened with adult experience.
One of the most memorable experiences of my childhood was the moment when for the first time in my life I saw flocks of geese. White creatures in the sun. Nothing impressed me so much, either before or after. There is a longing for innocence in every human and the awareness and regret of its irreversible loss. We suffer from insecurity, weakness, anxiety, many unsatisfied hungers. Even before a child is aware of its own individuality, consuming milk turns them into desire to drink. The child becomes the need they are driven by. The experience translates into the images. The images mingle with sensations.
Looking at a picture – in the broad sense of the word (Landscape, the sea, the rain in a park, rustling trees, reflection of the sun…) it happens an adult loses the sense of independence and for a moment, becomes an image himself, becomes a child, experiences relief.