Madge Gill und Walter Stöhrer

»Myrninerest« is what Madge Gill called the ghost that appeared to her, mostly at night, while she was drawing. Born out of wedlock in a London suburb during the Victorian era, Gill suffered almost every blow of fate that could befall her. Raised by her mother and aunt, who kept her existence a secret for years, she was then sent to an orphanage and from there shipped to Canada as a kind of domestic help. At the age of 19, Gill managed to return to London’s East End, where she worked as a nurse. Around 1919, she began drawing; by then she had lost one eye. She created lettering and embroidery. On the surface of the sheet, this density of threading is fulfilled by her drawing style. They are tightly connected and captivate with their immediate presence. Madge Gill was never interested in creating »art«. Driven by the phantom »Myrninerest«, her mystical works form a kind of protective wall against the outside world. Walter Stöhrer, on the other hand, deliberately chooses a close connection to the subject of myth without reducing it to narrative structures. It is a gestural and fragmentary exploration of mythical principles such as intoxication and ecstasy. Stöhrer also incorporates cryptic text fragments from various sources – from existentialist literature to the pre-Socratics – and creates a polyphonic relationship between image and word in the enigmatic language of mythical oracles. The fragments appear like pieces of a buried, yet still powerful world awaiting rational penetration. Themes such as creation, destruction, transformation, and human existence in the tension between nature and culture are reflected. The body becomes the scene of existential struggles, similar to those in ancient myths, whose timeless power Stöhrer depicts.