“How long is forever?” asks Alice. “Sometimes, just one second,” replies the White Rabbit. There are dreams lasting an instant in which everything seems frozen for an eternity. Time is elastic in our personal experience of it. Hours fly by like minutes, and minutes are oppressively slow, as if they were centuries.¹

For her 2021 commission at Turner Contemporary in Margate, England, artist Sophie von Hellermann exhibited a series of paintings that framed a seafront once described by JMW Turner as “the loveliest in all Europe.”² Immediate and active, the exhibition’s title, “Sirens,” evoked sound—from emergency signals to mythological creatures who lure sailors to their death with the sweetness of their songs. Perspectives fluctuated as vast canvases scaled the gallery walls in an expanse of color and space that mirrored the turbulent waters outside. A seascape captured by generations of artists, von Hellermann’s works reframed the rocky waters in her signature Romantic style.