Strange encounter

Image Interpretation

Two figures meet in an interspace between dream and reality—a dark, almost animalistic figure on the left and a brighter, human face on the right, surrounded by delicate webs of lines, small animal creatures, and enigmatic symbols. The color palette moves through warm ochre and gold tones that interweave with muted mauve nuances and deep black, as if the light itself were breathing between the layers. Delicate, sketchy contours overlay the translucent color fields, giving the composition a dreamlike, floating quality.

Atmosphere & Effect

The juxtaposition of the two entities—one wild and dark, the other inquisitive and open—speaks to the eternal human question of the "other" within ourselves. Small animals—a bird, a dog, feline creatures—populate the pictorial space as silent witnesses, reminiscent of the archaic visual language that Ri Meuser von Eschmar absorbed deeply during her study trips to Etruscan burial sites. The gold that shimmers through the layers of paint is not mere decoration here, but a "Ri Meuser" meaningful color: grandeur, life, and the timeless all in one.

Background and Meaning

Created in 1970, this work is among the early testimonies to Ri Meuser von Eschmar’s idiosyncratic artistic signature, in which lived experience and inner imagery merge inseparably. The fairytale-like figures and ambiguous symbols are characteristic of her entire body of work—as her son Tommy reports, she does not tell simple stories, but rather condenses imagined and lived life into dreamlike portrayals. Influences of archaic and Etruscan art, which she experienced directly through active participation in archaeological excavations, are clearly palpable in the primal figures of this image.