In March 2024, Regina Anzenberger traveled to Australia, again. Ever since taking her first trip there in 1989, her artistic work has been repeatedly inspired by the natural world of this continent. Over four chapters: Prolog, Riverbed Rocks, Rainforest, and Floating Bonds, she tells us the story of a special friendship, giant ferns, the stones and vegetation in a riverbed, an endless beach, and mysterious seahorses. With her painted-over photographs, expanded with drawings and found objects from nature, the artist creates not only a unique view of the fifth continent in the form of visual poetry, but also a metaphor for life itself.

Riverbered Rocks:
The photographs were taken during a trip through Tasmania in March 2024. Fascinated by the shapes of nature, she photographed the rocks in a riverbed and the flowers that cast their shadows on them. She uses her camera to capture structures and details of the landscape and gives them special meaning. In the instant photographs shown here entitled Riverbered Rocks , the theme of natural forms is continued through painterly and graphic representations. In particular, the shadows of flowers, which cast their patterns on the objects depicted, were incorporated into the images and thereby highlighted. They do not stick to the boundaries of photography, but rather go beyond them and imaginatively continue the existing motif. These extensions give the photographs a new dimension and offer the viewer a poetic interpretation of the natural conditions. In addition, Regina Anzenberger integrated finds from the area around the river into her work. These objects from nature, such as leaves or branches, create a symbolic connection to the place of origin of the work (native grounds), which is emphasized in her works.

Rainforest:
Also these images were taken in Tasmania. Fascinated by the forms of nature, the artist photographically captures the leaves and trees of an ancient rainforest. The resulting instant photographs do not stand on their own, but rather act as a starting point for Anzenberger's artistic work. She expands her photographs with painterly and graphic representations that expand on the motifs found.

Floating Bonds:
On the last day of her trip Regina Anzenberger ended up in a seahorse farm. It was founded by a biologist to breed seahorses for the Chinese market and to protect them in the wild. Unfortunately, this didn't work because they couldn't keep up with the prices in Asia. They are now sold for aquariums around the world and tours are given on site. This ancient creature is rarely seen in the wild. It was all the more astonishing that there are thousands of this species in large aquariums here.


'It wasn't until I looked through the pictures a second time that they became my muses. Because I hadn't noticed the concentrated look that they direct at the viewer outside the aquarium at first. Dismissed as a tourist attraction, I put the work aside. But it didn't take long for their connections to each other in the density of the aquarium to inspire and capture me in such a way that I developed a growing relationship with them. Finally, I read two books about seahorses and found the author Andrea Grill, who I asked to write more about these extraordinary creatures.'
- Regina Anzenberger.

Why the seahorses are a kind of barometer for the seas, that the males are pregnant, that they adapt their color to the environment and can even change their gender in an emergency - Regina Anzenberger found all this in addition to the visual impression of the mass of these creatures between alien and unicorn fascinating in the large aquariums of the Seahorse Farm.