May 20 – June 24, 2023

At the edge of Moll Brau’s debut solo exhibition with Rusha & Co., Sweet Dreams, lies a bed of nails where Brau once laid to rest. The sculpture was the base of her performance in Austin, Texas, where Brau, the dreamer, attempted to gain a deeper sense of self through the process of spiritual alchemy, a spiritual science inherited from Our Father Adam and passed on through philosophers, wizards, and saints. On seven consecutive nights, she performed a series of tasks symbolic of the seven steps of the alchemical journey before retiring to a meditative state upon her bed of nails. Each night, Brau presented a visitation representative of each step of this transmutative process: Calcination, Dissolution, Separation, Conjunction, Fermentation, Distillation, and Coagulation.

Calcination: The burning of the prima materia into ash. The breaking of our attachments to the worldy. The burning flame that purifies is the dreadful Kali, Goddess of destruction. Fire sparks the journey into the self. This is the first step of change. 

Dissolution: The ashes are dissolved into water. The dissident parts are diluted into a fluid condition. Energy channels are opened up. Cells are recharged. Adonis is rebuilt. The artificial structures of the psyche are immersed totally in the unconscious. 

Separation: The products of dissolution are separated, filtered. Essence becomes distinct from matter. The fog of ignorance and obstinacy are dissipated in this manifestation. True natures emerge. Materials now appear which can be discarded. Others formalize which can be embraced.

Conjunction: Elements deemed worthy can be combined into a new substance. Re-integration occurs, of unconscious and conscious, of male and female principals, of the Sun and the Moon. A marriage of principals for the sake of balance.

Fermentation: Bacteria and other living organisms are introduced to the substance to continue its breakdown (and simultaneously cause rebirth). Here comes pregnancy and fecundation. Matter breaks down and decomposes - bodies are the fertilizer for the seed. Transmutation to new nature is the causal combination that bears new fruit. Primavera: the first spring.

Distillation: The process of boiling the elixirs to increase purity. The cleaning or the final purge. Bitter, sharp, and acrid things become sweet. No impurities remain. Attained is the environment for apotheosis. 

Coagulation: Finally, the substance becomes crystalized into a solid state. A fluid state becomes a thickened mass. A meeting between matter and spirit, inner and outer, good and evil: the union of dualities. Born is self-awareness. This is rebirth which incarnates and releases the Ultima Materia of the soul, the Astral Body, solid light.

Moll Brau’s seven paintings in Sweet Dreams capture each of these steps – the canvases built up through acrylic, oil, volcanic rock, powdered Psilocybin, beef tallow, decaying flowers, Frankincense, gold, and even Brau’s own tears. In this sequential series of transformational self-portraiture, Brau’s awakenings and spiritual growth are channeled through the real and the imagined, documented and immortalized. The divine secrets of the alchemical process, the art of transformation, inner liberation, and change. 

Moll Brau is a multi-disciplinary artist from Shreveport, Louisiana with practices in painting, video work, performance, and installation. She earned her BFA from Louisiana State University and is currently based in Austin, Texas. Recent exhibitions include Texan Artists, Rusha & Co., Los Angeles (2022); Stiltsville, Half Gallery, Miami Beach (2022); Howl, Inman Gallery, Houston, TX (2022); Hokey Pokey, Martha’s Contemporary, Austin, TX (2021, solo); and Autumn, Martha’s Contemporary, Austin, TX (2021).

Artworks

Installation Views

Selected Press