Review

With the "Man of Sebaste", painted by Miriam Vlaming, can be seen from Saturday probably the largest painting that ever hung in the gallery Schlichtenmaier in Castle Dätzingen: 4.80 meters it measures in width, 2 meters high. On it stretches a blue roaring seascape, which is unparalleled in the picturesque narrative. Two men run through the spray towards the horizon, which doesn't really want to end. Water and man are recurring themes of the Berlin-based artist with Dutch roots, whose ancestors went to sea. In her work, Miriam Vlaming sets out to track down man: sometimes she thinks him back into the water, sometimes she ties him into archaic rites - or she presents him in a multi-layered cross-fading of memories, the experienced and the learned. Fairy tales, myths and fables emerge in personal contexts that can hardly be interpreted. Her imagery picks up on these streams of thought in a detail that seems photographic in part, blurred in part, even washed out at times, in the technique of ephemeral egg tempera to make this vague world of being comprehensible. Miriam Vlaming's works are mostly monumental, which adds to the effect of the incomprehensible of reality. "Splendor and Glory" is the title of one of these works. As opulent and full of life as it comes across, the painter is also clear that man can also perish with splendor and glory. With a dreamlike melancholy, she thus reflects on our species and the fragile world.