In July 2026, Beatriz Gil Vattier, intern at Olivier Cornet Gallery, wrote about Susanne Wawra's 'Die Gabe' (The Gift), glazed stoneware and oxides, 15x13x12cm, 2018, available to purchase for 500.

The art of resilience.

In a quiet corner of the storage area rests a headless torso with giving hands and a hollow inside as a pile of meat lies between its fingers, the silent offering lingers while awaiting receiving hands. Die Gabe is a sculptural piece made by Susanne Wawra in 2018. It was featured in the 2020 exhibition Sitzfleisch, the artist's first solo exhibition at the Olivier Cornet Gallery.

Sitzfleisch is a German compound word that could be defined as “seat meat” or “sitting flesh”. It is commonly used to refer to a person's behind. The artist explores the different ways of interpreting “having Sitzfleisch” in the sense of enduring, persevering and sitting still while performing a task. The exhibition delves into remembrance and family interconnections, all through the topic of the act of resilience. The body of work features a variety of media such as image transferring, painting, ceramic engraving, and sketchbook pages. Among them, a taupe coloured humanoid statue caught my eye.

Die Gabe, meaning “the gift” in German, is a ceramic piece made out of glazed stoneware and oxides that measures around 15 × 13 × 12 cm. The figure calls back to the artist's way of encapsulating the artistic process. It embodies the dedication and endurance that crafting art takes, signalling how the artist is capable of persevering and working on their idea for an extended amount of time, addressing Sitzfleisch both in a literal and metaphorical way.

The artist conveys her very own artistic production process as well as the sacrifices that the creation of an authentic art piece implies. In a way, she is presenting her unmasked self, her insides: her guts. By doing so, it shows in a poetic way the commitment and honesty that her artistic journey entails.

This raw and authentic offering emanates from within, evoking a visceral feeling, a hunch, an instinctive pulse so close to one's deepest emotions, it can only be embodied by the offering of the artist’s bowels.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown was enforced and it was no longer possible to showcase the exhibition, ironically, “in the flesh”. Instead, the show was launched virtually in a new online 3D space, which also inaugurated the long list of later live streamed events.

The OPW purchased two art pieces from this exhibition, Hackepeter I and Hackepeter II, for the art collection of the Irish State. The title could be translated from the German language as “minced meat”, both art pieces work as an analogy for the artistic process. In the words of the artist: “it represents a stage of rawness that is undefined and holds opportunity. It invites to play, add meaning, access something that still lies hidden, and possibly reveal itself by engaging with it.”

Die Gabe honours artistic exploration. It welcomes us to accept Wawra's body of work as a sincere offer that gently to push us to connect with our deepest core, and within her guts come to find her most heartfelt self.

Beatriz Gil Vattier, 23 July 2026