Dutch artist Sarah Dietz is bidding farewell to her six-month residency in Soest, Germany, with a compelling exhibition titled "There's a Softness about the Night" at the Wilhelm Morgner Museum. The young artist, who lived and worked as a scholarship recipient of the Soest Cultural Parliament from March to August of last year, presents a comprehensive room installation that captures her unique perspective on nighttime through drawings and mixed media works.
Born in 1996 and currently residing in Delft, Netherlands, Dietz received the prestigious scholarship from the Soest Cultural Parliament in late 2023. The award included a six-month residency at the Artist House in Paulipark, where she developed the body of work now on display. Her solo exhibition opened on Saturday, November 22, and will remain accessible to visitors through February 8, 2025.
The museum has established specific visiting hours for the exhibition: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, Thursday from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and weekends (Saturday and Sunday) from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The opening ceremony, attended by the artist herself, was officially launched by Mayor Marcus Schiffer at 5:00 PM on Saturday, with a special vocal performance by Caressa Betist enhancing the inaugural event.
Michael Stockhausen, director of Soest's municipal museums, enthusiastically provided Dietz with substantial space on the museum's ground floor. "As a museum, we serve as a platform for artists," Stockhausen explained. "It was fascinating for me to engage in dialogue with Sarah Dietz about how her exhibition should be conceived. It was very important to her that her drawings come together to form a large room installation, which simply required a certain amount of space."
The exhibition presents visitors with a comprehensive composition of individual works that also stand independently, offering their own space in various formats. Dietz's artistic exploration centers on what she associates with nighttime: the softness hesitantly revealed by curtains when clear daylight has departed or has not yet arrived. Her work also captures the quiet retreat from one's own fear of what might hide in darkness, embodying ambivalence and the search for clarity when the need for certainty temporarily outweighs the desire for ambiguity and curiosity about what could be.
The installation incorporates the museum's white walls themselves as part of the artistic statement, featuring delicate blue curved elements that embrace the softness of night. These wall treatments provide visible and tangible contours to what Dietz perceives as the essence of nighttime, creating an immersive environment that invites viewers to experience her interpretation of nocturnal landscapes and emotions.
Visitors to the exhibition encounter what Dietz describes as the abundance of inspiring impressions she has captured in her works – primarily through drawing, though the artist employs the term "poured" to describe how she channels these nighttime observations into her art. The exhibition challenges the common saying "as you can see, you see nothing" that applies to wandering in absolute darkness, instead revealing the rich visual and emotional content that the artist discovers in nighttime hours.
