About the Works

The drastic contrast of homely crochet work and disturbing subject matter has always been a recurring trademark of Waller's sculptures. These days, the terrible effects of wars on the physical and mental health of children is something very hard to not be aware of. Waller's work is not only concerned with the direct or indirect victims of fighting, such as children who have lost limbs through bombing or land mines, or traumatized children in refugee camps. Child soldiers that have been pressed into service and systematically brain-washed are also victims of violence exerted by adults. Carpet bombings, massacres, the destruction of cities and habitats, food shortages, inflation and economic crises are especially hard on children who cannot understand the context, have not built up emotional resilience and are completely dependent, and they leave deep physical and psychological scars. As a child, the artist herself still knew traumatized fathers and mothers who could not talk about their war experiences, who had as adults or themselves as children witnessed and tacitly endured raping, hunger, coldness and dying. The survivors were deeply molded by these events and directly or indirectly passed it on to the succeeding generations through their own conduct—whether through active or passive violence, emotional distance, failure of coming to terms with the past, addiction and other self-destructive behavior. That all exhortations of "Never again!" keep falling on deaf ears and that the human potential for violence keeps defying the ever so wonderful achievements of our advanced civilization, is deeply upsetting.