Anne Gaiss: Splendor Solis

The gallery is pleased to present Anne Gaiss’ show, Splendor Solis, the first collaboration between the gallery and the artist. Between macrocosm and microcosm, Anne Gaiss’ world draws from the sources of the invisible. Whether dealing with the internal structure of the material as revealed by science, or celestial matter lost at the confines of space, her quest is always for the mystery of its paths toward our consciousness. The artist becomes a Shaman, a conduit, the one who brings about a way to “see through” or “see beyond” our reality. Inspired by the writings of alchemists, she recreates a world. From a unity transformed into duality and further fragmented under the blade of the scalpel, from darkness to light, she plays, transforms, operates a metamorphosis and transmutes the visible to bring forth its quintessence. According to the alchemist Martin Rulland, “Imagination is the star, the celestial or supracelestial body within man.”

Ethereal, subtle, the spirit takes form, the form becomes matter, matter becomes consciousness. For the alchemist, metal has a soul; that is what the artist reveals in those papers. Their surface, covered with silver or copper, becomes a mirror of the soul, while chasings and scores take us to the back of the mirror. “Know yourself and you will know the universe” was the maxim of the temple of Delphi.

Beyond the exploration of the nature of matter, the artist as alchemist offers a way to project, as Jung suggested, the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it.