The indelible motif and swooning memories in the oeuvre of Anna Achilleos Stäubli
By Iris Kritikou
Art Historian - Independent Curator
I Hide Myself Within My Flower, 903
I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too-
And angels know the rest.
I hide myself within my flower,
That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me-
Almost a loneliness.
Emily Dickinson
Proposing as her title and, particularly, as her field of investigation and creation the french play words “Sensations Imprimées” - Imprinted Sensations - Anna Achilleos Stäubli digs up the blooming flowerbeds of her own, and our nostalgia, with talent and wilful mastery.
In the Encaustic painted paradise of white jasmine and unwithered wild roses, in labyrinths of chrysanthemums and beds of hyacinths, Anna replants seedlings of an unspoken yet eloquent autobiography.
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By Katharina Bütikofer
Artist, art educator and former professor for visual arts at the University of Bern and the Bern School of Arts.
The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.
Angelus Silesius, 1624–1670
The flower motif has been a staple in art and culture of all peoples and periods, in ever new and boundless variations. Flowers and flower images are not only ornaments and decorations, but symbols of something behind it. Just like icons, they are the visible manifestations of invisible things, their significance ranging from the festive bridal wreath to the last rose
on the grave. Resilience and frugality go hand in hand with vulnerability and lavish blossoming. When flowers wilt, we are bitterly reminded of the transience of things, when they bloom, they remind us of Persephone, who is only allowed to leave wintry Hades during the period of
vegetation.
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