Hexeneinmaleins (2013)
MIXED TECHNIQUE
A framed drawing of swirling locks of hair is set up in front of a soft pink background. A woman's hairstyle is elaborated on it, as a second framing of the drawing. Hexeneinmaleins joins two works by Elly Strik with dancing hairlines, one with a red, the other with a blue glow. The common title harks back to an excerpt from Goethe's Faust, in which Mephisto takes the main character into the kitchen of a witch. While brewing a potion of rejuvenation, she declares a dark mathematical rhyme. The scene links the (feminine) sensual to the irrational. With Strik, other associations and levels converge. Bald shaving was traditionally believed to rob a witch of her powers; uncovered women's hair also has erotic connotations. Does this work capture the ambiguity and absolute sensuality of women? And don't Strik's processual method and her pursuit of a fundamental symbiosis exhibit a parallel to the development in Faust?