tausend tränen

Babette Semmer

01.05. - 30.05.

We are discussing the hanging plan of Babette Semmer‘s paintings for her exhibition ‘A Thousand Tears’ at Studio Hanniball when my mobile phone vibrates. ‘I think we need to end this. This thing between us is an escape from reality. I think I need to be a bit more reasonable, otherwise I won‘t get anywhere in life,’ my high school lover writes to me. A few weeks ago, after fifteen years of marriage, divorce and custody battles, we met again - sensual, intense, like in a BRAVO photo love story. A flashback fling that touched my heart deeply. The reality? Different cities, commitments, children - no perspective. And yet I want to shout: No, let‘s be unreasonable! Let‘s stay sixteen forever! It‘s the recklessness that touches us deeply. This shared nostalgia for a time when everything revolved around stolen Garnier vanilla shampoo, heartache or, at most, the last argument with your parents. Who wouldn‘t rather practise French kissing on the fluffy carpet with their best friend than doing their tax return? My little heartbreak during lunch break made me realise that our adult lives are often too narrow for romantic escapades.

This is where Babette Semmer‘s painting comes in, focusing on the fragile moments of growing up. Born in 1989, the artist received a working grant from the Berlin Senate in 2024.

Her new works are based on the iconic BRAVO photo love stories - the emotional feuilleton of our youth. But instead of mere nostalgia, she is exploring with deeper themes: Intimacy, longing, shame, vulnerability, hope - and, above all, the uncertainty of self-discovery. She also questions her own identity as a mother - and the inner world of her child‘s generation. Generation Alpha is growing up in a world in which the focus is not on the relationship but on the external image. Identity is curated, feelings are filtered. Between screens and stimuli, reach replaces depth, reaction replaces real connection.

Semmer‘s paintings are not a retrospective, but an invitation to reflect. After all, BRAVO was once the social medium of the millennials - raw, poetic, moral. Semmer herself is not uncritical of this extreme example of heteronormativity and bourgeoisie disguised by love dramas. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: in ‘Babsi, Nancy and the Mother‘ (2024, oil and sand on canvas, 130 × 200 cm), the figures meet face to face, and it is about real emotions. Semmer‘s painting consciously oppose the immaculate filter view of our current reality. Her works are tentative contributions to contemporary art, in which painting - in competition with AI and NFTs - is becoming more important again. Her technique - a mixture of oil and sand - creates a sculptural feel. The piece Butter in ‘Butter Knife‘ (2025, oil and sand on canvas, 24 × 18 cm) seems almost touchable. The key to Semmer‘s work lies in this impressionistic technique: a call to us all to feel again.

‘Strange,’ says my grandmother, looking at her wrinkled reflection, ’I still feel sixteen at heart.’ If you believe Simone de Beauvoir‘s existentialist view of identity, then the old woman is the same as the young woman - she just has a different body. Babette Semmer‘s paintings are about closeness. About authenticity. About touch - literally and figuratively. Because we all fear ageing and flee from it in outward appearances.

Her works challenge us to rethink: it is not the outside that counts, but the inside.Or, to paraphrase C. G. Jung: ‘A person becomes old when they stop feeling young.‘

Text: Fabia Mendoza