Flowing masses of water seem to pour across the paper. Stormy waves form caverns and create perspectival depth. The crests of the waves evoke memories of the devastating tsunami in South Asia twenty years ago, an event that still stirs recollections among those affected: images deeply etched in memory, sounds that remain unforgettable. In the exhibition All day I hear the noise of waters, Eva Schlegel reflects on her own immediate experience of this natural disaster through a series of lithographs. These works are being presented for the first time in the showroom of Galerie Krinzinger.

The exhibited series is based on Eva Schlegel’s innovative engagement with the technique of lithography. The artist has been working with this traditional method for two years; initial experiments with this planographic printing technique led to further explorations. Schlegel was encouraged by the experienced Tyrolean lithographer Kurt Raich.

The grinding of the lithographic stone, during which the template is erased and all information is obliterated, served as a source of inspiration for Schlegel. Observing this process sparked her desire to shape these flowing forms, fix them, and capture them on paper. Inspired by the traces left by the grinding procedure, she developed motifs reminiscent of cascading water and stormy swirls.

The physically demanding act of painting on stone became a performance for Eva Schlegel, pushing the boundaries of printmaking techniques and her own physical limits. The attempt to extend a large-scale wave form across four stones was constrained by the reach of her arms. Furthermore, shaping the dynamic wave patterns required a sweeping motion that was impossible with the bulky stone-drawing tool. In collaboration with Kurt Raich, a lighter steel tool was designed, enabling larger gestures.

Initially, the artist says, she unconsciously created controlled compositions on the stone. In later works, Schlegel sought inspiration from media-transmitted images of the event, such as representations of the sea, resulting in deliberately composed images. Accompanying the images in the spatial display are blurred texts. The exhibition title borrows from a poem by James Joyce, other poems explore themes of the sea, inner depths, and painful states. The forms of the sea depicted in the works are textually accompanied but not verbally commented upon.

In the cabinet, the lithographs enter into dialogue with a spatially expansive sculpture by Schlegel. This piece references the artist's decades-long exploration of spatiality while simultaneously linking to her newly showcased works. The specular surface reflects and amplifies the spatial depth of the water masses depicted in the lithographic works, metaphorically drawing viewers into the pull of the tsunami.