Anne Herzbluth

Statement

In my work I am not necessarily concerned with change, but rather with the act of preserving - with the practice of looking beneath the surface to what is inside of things, perhaps even probing into unsolvable mysteries.

These mysteries are like a puzzle that is never complete. Collages give me the freedom to connect opposing realities, thus giving life to wholly different and freely interpretable meanings. The visual contents describe (relate), but they refuse to provide instant clarification. There is a blank space between that which is shown and the story that the observer now must construct for themselves. I often work with subject matter that is so “unimportant” that it doesn’t seem to be worth remembering; but to forget it would turn us into different people. Subtle understanding of opposites is what life is about. The most important of these are the serious, weighty things, which can be found, logically enough, on the ground.

Art’s many different languages all have the same goal: to transform what happens in the moment into something permanent. To create a foundation, a basis, for the order of things. As a kind of answer, which we seldom notice in nature.

What I am trying to do is to leave my mark behind. I am here, I fail, I am happy, I am sad. I have fears and am full of hope. I have an idea, I pursue it and that’s why I’m working.

Ultimately, I am not interested in things I fully understand. Knowing one has happened upon the right things is more important than understanding them. There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the images, truths that only reveal themselves sporadically, like the Northern Lights in a winter sky. Things we don’t feel, we forget. Through my work I would like to create moments in time in which our imagination overlaps reality. These are the moments in which we are alive.