Sweet Solar Dreams

Sweet Solar Dreams is a triptych installation of luminous sculptures, with a video projection and sound piece, originally based on Liliane Lijn’s interest in dreams. For this installation, there is a murmuring of five different dreams related to the three sleeping heads.

In Sweet Solar Dreams I the head is a shadow sinking into sleep on a luminous pillow, green blue for dusk, the bronze head patinated black. The pillow is surrounded by inked rags saved from her day’s work in the etching studio. Listen carefully since the rags also relate to one of her dreams.

In Sweet Solar Dreams II the dreamer’s luminous head rests on a cracked, opaque, purple pillow. She dreams of dropping everything she has carried for so long. Midnight dreams and nightmares. Surrounding the pillow, is a necklace of scanned images of sleeping brains printed on acetate. The glass head is alive with moving, changing images of the brain at different moments, during sleep, before sleep, near waking, or alerted by light.

Sweet Solar Dreams III is reminiscent of dawn, the bronze head patinated more towards a daytime hue, the pillow surrounded by a billowing feathery white boa. The boa hints at luxurious feminine fantasies, while simultaneously referring to the dreamer’s mortal struggle with a gigantic bird.

In this artwork, the artist wants to make the unconscious visible. The psyche becomes more alive than the physical presence of the person. Chronobiology studies the effect of light on the human brain and how different levels of light affect sleep. Might they also affect dreams?

Liliane Lijn’s work has been pervaded by sound since 1962. For Lighten Up! She uses the sound of her own voice to evoke Sweet Solar Dreams.