Art goes visible
Artist Martine Mirage is expressive in many ways: she creates collages and sculptures, paints and plays the violin.
Due to a scarred tracheostomy, she cannot use a speaking cannula. This makes her without a voice, but not mute! Through her art, she not only becomes visible, but also audible.
Martine Mirage
In and for her art, she employs
different techniques and genres,
which she enjoys using on an equal terms.
She also takes photographs and writes.
The all-rounder is expressive in many ways: she creates collages and sculptures, paints and plays the violin. In doing so, she employs different techniques and genres, which she enjoys using on an equal terms. She also takes photographs and writes. She describes the variation in her expression with the feeling that every day, every night is different. The world keeps on turning, therefore the artist also keeps on reinventing herself.
"My expression varies because every day/night is different, too."
Martine Mirage
Her art is intended to convey her opinions, express social criticism and generate feelings. Here, she uses common symbols in clear colours to be associated by the beholder. She tells us that this style belongs to surrealism and that she uses her imagination and education as the foundation. She draws her inspiration from her biography, her medical history, her dreams, from contacts with society and from conversations. The big city environment is also a source.
Her art also helps her in coming to terms with the past as well as being a form of art therapy. This is because Martine Mirage suffers from schizophrenia, an illness she has learned to deal with openly. She says: "with a mental illness you have a lifelong good reason to work on yourself as a human being". We think: this principle actually applies to all people.
Martine Mirage's oeuvre is inspiring and makes you want to try things yourself. Her art changes itself and the beholder.
The Happy Fish (Spring 2022)
"Fish are mute animals and express themselves through gestures, and ever since I have a tracheostomy and can no longer communicate with an audible voice, I feel very attracted to them. In a way, I seem to have identified myself with this sign of the zodiac. People are judged by their deeds."
Paranoid Schizophrenia (January 2018)
"This represents a fresh start as in 2017, without my medication, I trashed all my creative life's work from 2004-2017. In acute psychoses, one sometimes does something like this. On the other hand, this work also symbolises the two sides of people born under the sign of Gemini, of which I am one."
Boomerangs
(Summer 2018)
"It reflects how mankind's way of life, i.e. his consumer behaviour, has led to existential distress of the polar inhabitants. The boomerangs symbolise the selfish hostility towards lower creatures (here a penguin). But the weapons are chosen in such a way that they will ultimately hit the human race itself. It's a law of logic."."
King Football (November 2022)
"While this picture does not depict the many billions invested in this sport, it commemorates the deaths of migrant workers and the discussion about the "One Love" armband at the Qatar World Cup. The black cross represents death. The clouds symbolise the souls of the departed, which can be blown in all directions by the wind, as they now only exist as memories."
Lütze
(February 2023)
"From the age of 10, I grew up in a village on the Lower Rhine. With woods behind the house and fields in front. I got to know country life. To appreciate animals and nature. Decades have passed since then and the exploitation of nature's resources has taken on enormous forms. As is well known, Germans consume too many resources. The mole in the picture may feel as if he is in Wonderland. The picture is a memento to the youth in and around Lützerath, where lignite excavators do their best to make people forget what it used to be like there. However, nature will take it all back!"
Loss of voice (2018)
"Immediately after the tracheotomy in 1994, I noticed that due to the lack of a natural voice, this leads to a disconnect in the affected person. By portraying a "punk", I want to show that I personally reacted with rebellion and was able to free myself as a personality even after decades. With such a severe disability, the mind continues to be separated from the natural physique, and breathing continues to feel "empty". The black running matchstick man represents the remaining mechanical (background) noise when breathing and expectorating. Naturalness has been lost, what has remained is the dependence on the system to be able/allowed to breathe."
