"I started to put condoms on my hands and feet and fill them with water to see how it would feel to be a mermaid," said Janaina Tsch?_pe of her artwork. Tsch?_pe is a versatile artist and the creator of "He Drowned in Her Eyes as She Called Him to Follow," the short film shown at the UB Art Gallery on Friday evening.
An open house preceded the event with tours of the facility and a talk with the artist. In the film, Tsch?_pe plays a modern-day mermaid. This is a simple, surreal film with a well-developed storyline.
The artist is the daughter of a Brazilian mother and German father. They gave Tsch?_pe her name, which means "water goddess." An aquatic theme is the focus of much of her art, which include drawings, photographs and video installations.
Tsch?_pe incorporates inert bodies, amphibious creatures and egg- and membrane-like structures into her nature-oriented environments. The round shapes contrast with the crashing waves of the sea and the cascading waterfalls.
The screening room was intimate, seating 25 people. There were three screenings offered after a lavish array of finger foods and refreshments. The audience ranged from young to old, students and alumni, fashionably dressed and not. Tsch?_pe's appeal appears to be broad.
Tsch?_pe began experimenting with performance art after studying at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Hamburg, Germany, under the artist Henning Christiansen. She created the film "He Drowned in Her Eyes as She Called Him to Follow" in 2000 with the themes of metamorphosis and death.
It is a story of a mermaid snared in a fisherman's net and brought ashore only to wander around in a dreamlike state moving through various activities. She climbs a seaside cliff, takes a ride on a carousel and attends a karaoke bar, where she is serenaded.
She eventually returns to the sea with the sailor she has mesmerized. Their clothes lying on the beach signify his death and her return to the sea. It is left up to the imagination whether she survives after her walk on land. The soundtrack throughout the short film was a haunting Russian love song that the sailors spontaneously sang while Tsch?_pe was filming. The grainy 8-mm, or "Super 8," film gave it an unearthly feel that reinforced its fairy tale theme. It was filmed in Spain, England, New York and Brazil.
In an earlier 1999 work titled "Capri Exterieur," she is standing at a railing looking out at a landscape with a fluid-filled condom on her hand. Her earlier mermaid preoccupation is evident in this sizeable photograph.
Tsch?_pe was born in Germany, but grew up in Brazil, where the ocean had a great impact on her creativity and love of the medium. She currently splits her time between New York and Brazil. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1998.
Tsch?_pe has also completed an artist in residence program at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Salvador, Brazil. Her exhibits have been shown through much of Europe, Asia and South America. This is her second solo showing in North America.
"I really admire the simplicity of her art. She exposes the mechanics of it," said Sandra Firmin, curator of the exhibit.
Before her current work in films and photography, Tsch?_pe produced a series of latex sculptures.
"I wanted to turn myself into sculpture," she told her audience. This interest led to her work, "100 Little Deaths," which took over four years to complete. It is a series of photos in which the artist is lying face down in 100 different locations.
Tsch?_pe said painter Casper David Friedrich inspired "100 Little Deaths." Friedrich said, "If one is to live forever, one must succumb to death often."
Her fearless originality is inspiring to young artists searching for a medium.
