Bettina Edith Schroeder

Artist statement

My work is an ongoing investigation into ways in which one can represent visually an aspect of a psychological condition, such as anxiety, melancholia, mourning, or the vanishing of the self as a form of loss or absence.
Recent work explores fairy tales as a symbolic dimension for the depiction of distressing states of mind and, in this context, how themes from literature, i.e. the journey, can be transposed into artistic imagery. In Jungian terms, the journey signified the unification of the conscious mind with its shadow side; the result would be a complete, rounded personality.

I am currently more interested in journeys without return, as might happen when the mind disintegrates into illness: nothing is found, but things are lost; the self, or the traveller, may be lost to others. I explore these questions through sculpture, photography and film.

The resulting work is often uncomfortable. It tells the story of a search with no conclusion. Thus, the narrative is broken, and the plot won't come together. Depending on the viewer, the work could be interpreted as the depiction of an internal condition, abstract fairy-tale-like, or unsettlingly surreal.