Miriam Vlaming

Sleepwalking absence

Author: Thomas Hirsch

People cannot be trusted. Are they really there, or are we just imagining them? In many of Miriam Vlaming’s paintings, they seem to grow out of nature itself, appearing inextricably intertwined with it, or crossing through it and standing out against her painterly backdrop. At the same time, they are reminiscent of will-o’-the-wisps, appearing to float, themselves unstable and fleeting like a temporary but momentous event. The entire scene is enveloped in a vibrant, subdued light, making it seem all the more dreamlike. The effect of remaining between reality and memory, objective description and production from the subconscious is essentially related to the location in the landscape. To this end, the surrounding area is gray-black and curved like a tunnel (“In Between,” 2016; “Schattwald,” 2018), or the figure merges with the all-over nature (“Maria in the forest,” 2016) or detaches itself, almost filling the picture, from the earth (“Ready steady go around,” 2023), or water and air act as a moving substance in the twilight, which is broken by rays of light (“Johnny remember me,” 214). In general, we remain at a distance from what builds up from the depths in multiple layers, as if on a stage. It is also worth reading the titles carefully.