Down Below

Cécile Lempert presents large-format paintings in the exhibition ‘Down Below’ at the artothek – Raum für junge Kunst (art library – space for young art), which take up the narrative of memories of lost homeland and family.

Using historical photographs of the Dildilian family, a successful Armenian dynasty of photographers, she develops an atmospheric reflection on emotional ties to family and memories of home, raising the question as to what remains of these roots in personal history when people are persecuted and displaced.

She combines the atmospheric photographs of the Dildilians with William Golding's trilogy of novels ‘To the End of the Earth’, the last volume of which, ‘Fire Down Below’, inspired the title of the exhibition. In this novel, a young man experiences personal growth on a ship voyage to the other end of the world. After leaving his homeland, the sea, the ship and the long journey represent a phase of uncertainty in which his transformation can take place, even if unknown dangers lurk beneath the façade of social order.

Cécile Lempert uses formal considerations to transport her visual motifs into a temporality reminiscent of film sequences. The visible image – often constructed as a detail – shows only a moment from a narrative thread that considers what came before and strives for what comes after.