Cheryl Laemmle

Cheryl Laemmle’s mysterious, surrealistic paintings contain private stories about the artist’s inner life, often alluding to themes of melancholy, memory, and imperfection. Using personal symbolism drawn from childhood, dreams, and fairytales, this self-portrait is an allegorical still-life painting conjuring the psyche of the artist through the juxtaposition of metaphysical objects. The long, carefully painted, braided hair evokes fables of princesses in towers waiting to be set free, while the bottle and cage connote isolation and imprisonment.

This painting blurs the line between still-life and portraiture. Rather than portraying an accurate physical likeness, Cheryl Laemmle offers the viewer a personal vision of herself. The objects represented function symbolically to evoke childhood memories and important aspects of her past that she sees as integral to her adult persona. The faceless wooden figure, a common motif in Laemmle’s work, references the wooden figures that her grandfather would carve for her from birch trees that grew in the forest near the family home in Ishpeming, Michigan. The figure’s face is left blank except for random eye-like knotholes, perhaps symbolizing inner sight.