Drawing from a range of recollected thought and emotion while she paints, Sabine Mortiz attempts to make the invisible visible.

Moritz titles her paintings to offer hints at the origin of these thoughts and emotions, while at the same time she attempts to dissolve boundaries between artist and viewer, creating new horizons of thought. Moritz's paintings might refer to personal experiences or moods (Inside the Heart and Under the Skin), reactions to historical or geographical events (Kamchatka and Pantanal), supra-individual emotions (Mercy during the COVID-19 pandemic; Meditations about War during the ongoing crisis in Ukraine), climate change or natural phenomena (Heart of Drought, Mine and Underground or Rain, Fog and Storm) and ancient mythologies (Leviathan, Actaion, Persephone, Thetis and Hera).

The titles of each painting emerge either in the process being made, or they are attached to the paintings once finished. The titles connect each individual painting to a constellation of works across her oeuvre, drawing parallels between Moritz’s process and her exploration of inner and outer worlds.

Hera II is part of a series titled after Greek gods and mythical creatures. Hera is the highest-ranking Greek goddess, known for her strength and determination to maintain order on Olympus. She is Zeus’s equal and embodies a strong female image, able to assert her unlimited power. And yet she often acts irrationally, driven by ambivalence, uncertainty, jealousy or a desire for revenge. The ancient Greek conception of humanity has a special appeal to Moritz, which is reflected in the behaviour of the gods: negative and positive qualities integrated into the same personalities, which then unfold in their complexity through myths and storytelling. For Moritz, the invocation of ancient mythology shows its ongoing relevance to the present day, which is still infused with these stories as part of our cultural memory.