Art Gallery Imhof Fine Arts presents Mental Escape – a staging dedicated to the power of imagination and the conscious retreat from the noise of the world. In this showroom, the boundaries between physical reality and the inner sanctuary of the mind dissolve, creating a space for profound reflection.
At the center is Wouter Berns’ surrealist work Leave me. The painting portrays a barefoot figure holding an open book over their head like a protective roof, transforming a simple object of education into a mobile architecture of privacy. While Berns uses surrealist language to establish the book as an existential sanctuary, this atmosphere of concentrated withdrawal finds a tangible continuation in the interior below.
The special symbiosis of this staging lies in the evocative transformation of the setting: the vintage school desk and the tie – symbols of academic discipline and social order – are reinterpreted here. In combination with the open book and the contemplative wooden sculpture The Thinker, they no longer represent a place of rigid learning, but rather a familiar home for the spirit. Stylistically, a bridge is built where the school utensil becomes a personal sanctuary and a place of refuge. A formal harmony is created in which the silence of the room and the transformative energy of literature merge into a deep resonance, allowing the mind to find its true home within the infinity of the pages.
Click on the hotspots in the image or explore the individual pieces listed below to learn more about this interplay – exclusively at Art Gallery Imhof Fine Arts.
