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DEFRAGMENTING EDEN

TANJA SELZER | LAURA ECKERT | DANIEL SAMBO-RICHTER

09 OCTOBER - 03 NOVEMBER 2025

Galerie Sara Lily Perez presents the group exhibition Defragmenting Eden, bringing together works by Tanja Selzer, Laura Eckert, and Daniel Sambo-Richter.

Eden – traditionally understood as a mythical place of innocence, abundance, and origin – appears in this exhibition not as a harmonious whole, but as a broken and reassembled landscape. It is reframed as a site where beauty endures through fragmentation, and where destruction and renewal coexist.

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Defragmenting Eden presents paradise as a state in flux. Defragmentation implies a dual movement: disintegration and reconstruction, loss and creation, rupture and renewal. This exhibition views Eden not only as a biblical or mythological concept but as a metaphor for personal, ecological, and collective states of being.

In the dialogue between Selzer’s intimate tableaux, Eckert’s salvaged and reconfigured sculptures, and Sambo-Richter’s serene abstractions, Eden emerges not as a fixed place of origin but as a living process - desire turning into vulnerability, fragmentation opening up new possibilities, and transformation arising from reimagined fragments. Rather than depicting devastation, the interplay of these artistic voices suggests that even in broken moments, the garden remains a space of hope, beauty, and gentle renewal.

FEATURED ARTIST

LAURA ECKERT

Laura Eckert (b. 1983, Trier) is a sculptor based in Leipzig whose work centers on the human figure and portrait. Her expressive sculptures, often created from recycled wood and stone, probe the mutual relationships between cultural, social, biological, and psychological aspects of human existence. Eckert constructs her figures from assembled and layered materials such as scrap wood, floorboards, and beams, embracing knots, cracks, and irregularities as key aesthetic elements. The resulting fragments and transitions mirror both the life cycle of the materials and the vulnerability of the human body, capturing moments of passage, transformation, and resilience.


Echoing techniques from Renaissance portrait sculpture, Eckert’s busts are typically axial and frontal, emphasizing individuality while exposing the process of their own creation. Each figure is assembled from separate components, allowing viewers to glimpse the inner construction and marking each work as both incomplete and evolving. Rather than concealing imperfections, she invites viewers to reflect on what lies beneath the surface, using visible scars, overgrowth, and additions to hint at ongoing change and renewal. Her practice positions the body as a site of memory and possibility - where the fragmentary becomes a powerful form of representation.

DANIEL SAMBO-RICHTER

Sambo-Richter was born in Görlitz in 1966. Between 1982–85 he studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Dresden and Cottbus, before moving to Berlin. Over the years he was Artist in Residency in the National Museum of Montenegro and Castle Liebenberg, among others. Additionally, his works were exhibited in various nations of the world including Angola, the U.S., Poland, and Denmark.

TANJA SELZER

Tanja Selzer (1970, Idar-Oberstein, Germany) is a painter who explores themes of sensuality, voyeurism, and human experience. She studied design at the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg. Selzer creates complex paintings by transferring images from media, photos, and film stills onto her canvases. Her work opens up new, sometimes ambiguous spaces beyond the original images. Her paintings invite viewers into intimate, fragmented worlds that challenge social norms. Tanja lives and works in Berlin and has shown her art widely across Europe and internationally.

Galerie Sara Lily Perez all rights reserved © 2025

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