Esther Teichmann, Untitled from Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears, 2012-2014, C-type print, editon of 5 © Esther Teichmann, courtesy of Flowers Gallery

LONDON - In her first solo show at Flowers, Esther Teichmann invites us into a liquid dream-like world of desire. Cascading waterfalls and seashells whispering the lapping of waves are juxtaposed with statues who seem to be stepping out of the stone from which they are carved. A large scale backdrop of a cave is painted in dripping inks. Languid female nudes punctuate mythical landscapes, auto-erotic in their gaze and gesture, eyes turned away or averted to storm clouds above them. A pregnant woman lies under a night sky with a child lying between her thighs, another rests on her elbow, back turned, swallowed by the darkness of the boat-bed she is lying upon. Sisters, friends, lovers, strangers, these women of flesh and stone tell us of pleasure and longing.

Teichmann’s practice uses still and moving image, collage and painting to create alternate worlds, which blur autobiography and fiction. Central to the work lies an exploration of the origins of fantasy and desire and how these are bound to experiences of loss and representation. Both filmic works and photographs of turned away bodies and primordial spaces of enchantment work with the relationships between images, and the narratives these juxtapositions create.

A limited edition artist book with original cyanotype cover is published to coincide with the exhibition (published by Self Publish Be Happy in an edition of 500). At the centre of the book, a short story takes us further into the images and into the invisible oceans inside the shells’ gleaming openings. A special gallery edition will be available from Flowers only.

German/ American artist Esther Teichmann received an MA and PhD from the Royal College of Art. Primarily based in London, she is senior lecturer at the London College of Communication, visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art and spent the past year as guest professor at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Teichmann has both published and shown her work internationally. In the last year, she participated in group exhibitions at the Houston Centre of Photography and the Dong Gang Museum of Photography in South Korea. Esther has had further group and solo shows in museums and galleries in Germany, the UK, the United States, Australia, Italy and Switzerland. Teichmann has recently been published in Carol Mavor’s Black and Blue (Duke University Press) and Mavor’s Blue Mythologies (Reaktion Books).

Upon invitation Esther has curated talks programms for the Photographers’ Gallery (on Affect in 2011), and guest edited and written six features for Foam Museum’s blog (2013). New visual and written works are featured in the current issue of the Spanish/ Mexican Photography biannual EXIT. Esther is currently working on several new film pieces as part of a trilogy, following her 2012 film In Search of Lightning.

Esther Teichmann, Untitled from Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears, 2012-2014 © Esther Teichmann, courtesy of Flowers Gallery