Approach - Brother Sleep

Approach - Brother Sleep

Death has always been a mystery for people. We cannot grasp it, we cannot explore it, we can only rarely talk about it. At the same time, no one can avoid dealing with death. Like the other side of a coin, it is an inevitable part of life. In life, we come closest to death when we sleep: our body temperature and blood pressure drop, our pulse and breathing slow down and our consciousness slowly switches off. This allegory is already known in Greek mythology: Thanatos (death) and Hypnos (sleep) are twin brothers of the mother Nyx (night).

We seem to cross a boundary when we sleep. Who can say with certainty that death is not the crossing of this boundary, only without return? It is the finality and the uncertainty that make us fear death.

At the same time, the seamless transition from sleep to death is a desire for many people, in some cases even an irresistible one. Since the Romantic period at the latest, the motif of death wish has been an integral part of Western culture. But how do we deal with this paradox: the longing to die and the fear of it? How can something as terrible and brutal as death also be a gentle, sweet release?

The work ‘Annäherung – Bruder Schlaf’ (Approach – Brother Sleep) is an attempt to depict this paradox. The pillow, which is actually light, soft and cuddly, becomes a hard, heavy object when made of ceramic. The figurative modelling and smooth surface design leave the illusion of materiality open.

Then there is the unusual shape: the pillow folds in the middle of the long side. The upper half arches against this unusual deformation, while the lower half sinks in, as if weighed down by a heavy object. The folds that form at the seam on the side and at the front resemble the teeth of a closed mouth. A tuft of long blonde hair emerges from this seam and falls gently over the lower curve of the pillow. The sleeper is only fragmentarily depicted: deeply immersed in the curves of the pillow, she is hidden from the viewer‘s gaze, already immersed in other spheres. The pillow has come to life and swallowed her. Whether it was an act of violence or mercy is impossible to tell.

“This relationship with death fluctuates between ‘brutal objectification and innocent rapprochement’ and is always ‘the strange interest and desire for an encounter with the destruction of the subject/object’.”

Susanne Rieser

It should also be mentioned that the artist began the work “Approach – Brother Sleep” shortly after the death of her grandmother, who had Alzheimer‘s disease.