Annelies Strba: My Life's Dreams

About

Annelies Strba's work is concerned with notions of time and history; subjects which she expresses in a metaphorical and highly personal way. In the past Strba has approached a wide range of subjects; from the earthquake-stricken city of Kobe or the gloom of Auschwitz to wild flowers on the Bronte Moor. Her attention is most often turned towards her family and their home by Lake Zürich, Switzerland, a place with an unmistakable aura. These works, which are all archival pigment prints on canvas, take the form of personal and poetical images of places and people who have defined the artist's physical and emotional life. The world that Strba creates is an entirely feminine one in which her daughters and granddaughters (often central to the work) appear as ethereal figures suspended in dream-like landscapes. The wraith like figures seem to be emerging from or being absorbed by an hallucinatory environment, they communicate a sense of longing for becoming one with nature. In this way Strba's images evoke the works of the Romantic painters such as Caspar David Friedrich as well as the likes of Turner, Balthus and Klimt.