Biedermeier Reloaded

In her Biedermeier Reloaded cycle, Ellen Semen takes the aesthetics and ideals of the Biedermeier period and catapults them into the present day. With a keen sense of the decadent splendor of this era, she creates intimate scenes of the home sweet home, suggesting an idyll of "home sweet home", but at the same time hinting at a subtle danger and a sense of prison. This tense atmosphere is created by a sophisticated timeshift that transposes the apparent harmlessness of the Biedermeier era into the here and now. Nature, once a refuge and harmony, now appears as a silent witness to a latent threat. Semen's works challenge us to question the duality of security and limitation in our modern lives.