The sculpture I am currently working on is titled “The Exorcism of the Little Mermaid“. The story of H.C. Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” (1837) is dealing with the unhappiness of unrequited first love. Exorcism means to remove an evil spirit. So the title of this piece has two meanings: the depicted woman is being cleared from an evil spirit possessing her, or perhaps she is the evil spirit and she is being banned from possessing another person. Maybe the cleaning process will affect both, the person liberated and the spirit being removed from a person, and maybe this is a healing process for both, because they are too different to live together.

During the forming and drying process:

Josiane Keller “The Exorcism of the Little Mermaid – forming 1” (2021)

Josiane Keller “The Exorcism of the Little Mermaid – forming 2” (2021)

Josiane Keller “The Exorcism of the Little Mermaid – forming 3” (2021)

Josiane Keller “The Exorcism of the Little Mermaid – forming 4” (2021)

Josiane Keller “The Exorcism of the Little Mermaid – drying” (2021)

Whilst I am making sculptures my friend from Germany, who has breast chancer, showed the pictures of me with the marionette Shagbunny to her parents. Upon this I received a concerned e-mail from my friend’s stepfather, telling me the photos were “frightening”. I had to laugh, because in America you would never get to hear such a comment, but otherwise in Germany nobody would praise you for anything they do not really mean that way. So I decided to take this photo with my cut off dreads places on my naked head, which in my opinion looks far more frightening (“Ringu”)!

Josiane Keller “shaved head with cut off dreads” (2021)