Esther Teichmann’s photographs, films and writings, picture mothers like caves, sisters like seashells, lovers like moons, tears like waterfalls. Entering the octopus darkness of Teichmann’s caverns we find ingestion and emission, mother and daughter, sister and sister, lover and lover, surrealism’s erotic jolt: the irritant that makes the pearl. Seashells with apertures like cameras. The womb as oceanic. Lovers as moons. Holding as withholding. Day as night.

On Sleeping and Drowning takes the audience into an alternate orphic world, moving from beds to swamps and caves, in search of a primordial return. Narratives of loss and desire are entangled like the glistening tentacles wrapped around the bodies depicted. Like the coral said to be formed by Medusa’s blood spilled upon seaweed, Teichmann’s work transforms one thing into another, sliding between autobiography, fiction and myth.

Set within natural caves, painted studio sets and 19th century shell grotto follys, we move from real to imagined spaces architecturally combining different cultural influences. This play of scale and references is echoed here within the exquisite setting of Murin-an’s gardens and buildings. Using the garden and traditional architecture as inspiration for the exhibition, the works have been positioned in such a way so as to create a reflection of the scenic beauty of the garden within the works themselves. A special video piece has also been selected for the space to echo the rocks, seasonal colours and mountains which are brought out by the aesthetic beauty of Murin-an garden as well as a unique scroll featuring an additional special print made to sit within the traditional inlets within the main building. Together with the setting of Murin-an and the prints created by the artist with master printers during a residency at Benrido Collotype Atelier in Kyoto, reimagine a 19th century photographic printmaking process in today’s world, allowing us to travel across time and place.