Nelli Wilhelm
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An interior opening onto a night-time city: at the left a vast aircraft fuselage of glowing bubble windows fills the wall, propeller planes and airliners circling around it. Through a door two young people start back from a hooded figure holding a luminous sheet of paper. At the right a pale, white-haired woman sits at a laid table lifting a slice of pizza. Papers, slippers and cloths lie scattered across the floor. Painted thickly and luminously in oils.

Departure from Reality

Aircraft break through a private interior and join the seemingly familiar to a foreign outside world. People react differently to what is pushing into the room: with fear, with distance, or with astonishing calm. The scene follows no realistic logic, yet it has the emotional consistency of an intense dream. Travel becomes a symbol of change and of losing control. The known and the unknown begin to mingle. “Departure from Reality” describes the moment when the familiar order is no longer enough.