And her tears flow like a stream in the meadows
Intaglio print, drawing with pastel chalk and charcoal (2024)
The intaglio prints are based on the grotesque German children's story "Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug“ (The Very Sad Story of the Lighter) by Heinrich Hoffmann. The story is about a little girl who is home alone and plays with matches, even though her father has forbidden her to do so. Eventually, her dress catches fire, then her hair, her skin, and she burns to ashes. It ends with her cats crying like streams in the meadows. Miau! Mio! Miau! Mio!
The story is absurd, violent and it radiates a certain heaviness. The whole book reads like a bizarre nightmare. When I was little, my grandmother read it to me (because my name is the same as the girl in the story). It feels like the pale colors of death, like tearing butterflies apart, like rats eating my fingers, like it's winter forever with the sour taste of rotten apples.
