The Esther Woerdehoff gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Ursula Kraft and Michael Schnabel's recent works. The opening reception will be held on Wednesday, March 21, 2012. The artists will be present.


Ursula Kraft

The German photographer will be presenting new works which continue et complete her Emerentia series and also pursue the questioning of dreams, metamorphosis, myth and the transition from childhood to adulthood. The artist uses landscapes along with the symbolism of fairy tales to depict an internal landscape. Following the interpretation of C.G. Jung who found in the fairy tales the expression of the psychological process in a collective unconscious, Ursula Kraft looks for ways to represent through images an introspective dimension, a glint of the soul.

"Emerentia gives images to our introspective worlds while being an intuitive reflection of our soul. According to C.G. Jung, the fairy tale expresses the psychological process of the collective unconscious. Mythological characters such as the 'trickster" which belongs to many different cultures, represent the dark side of the "child within", his ambivalent twin.

The archetype of the wandering child, of the lost child, evokes the irresistible urge to define and name this figure. The red cape becomes the surface where our memories, fears and desires will be projected.
Emerentia relates through these internal landscapes an initiatory path and brings to life certain scenes of those fairy tales. Nature can be peaceful and nourishing like in "Snow-White and Rose-Red" or can be a nightmarish and dangerous place like in the "Little Red Riding Hood". The dark Forest symbolizes the chaos and our unconscious fears. The images, like the tales, have become through their symbolism the threshold between childhood and adulthood, the passage into womanhood.

Emerentia evolves through different characters who are already present in the creative process. Those different directions remain connected by a theme and the tales are woven like a spider web.
(…)" Ursula Kraft