I’M FALLING ASLEEP

Shelby Rahe

Lane Meyer Projects is pleased to present I’m Falling Asleep, a solo exhibition by Shelby Rahe

January 24, 2025 - March 17, 2025

Opening Reception: January 24, 8pm to late

Lane Meyer Projects is proud to present I’m Falling Asleep, a solo exhibition by Austin, TX-based film director and artist Shelby Rahe. The unconscious mind, particularly during the moments before falling asleep, is the focus of Rahe’s debut with the gallery, featuring a one-channel video, two sculptures, and a printed booklet.

In the space between the logical and unconscious mind, Shelby Rahe finds her inspiration. The hypnagogic, the state just before falling asleep, is marked for Rahe by feelings of euphoria, expansiveness, and creativity. Long a point of fascination, cognition’s fleeting messages as the mind swirls into unconsciousness, have served as nightly reminders of other modes of experience and perhaps even truth. Following these moments into the unknown like a trail of breadcrumbs, Rahe explores the symbols, characters, and narratives of her mind as it slips into dreamlike states.

Rahe’s experience in filmmaking, including directing and production design, heavily influences her art practice. Her video piece The Sleep Conductor (2024), allows the viewer to observe the artist’s depiction of the mind falling asleep from the safety of a cave. The primary subject, the artist costumed as a rabbit character she calls the Sleep Conductor, is a manifestation of Rahe’s subconscious; a fearless explorer of the caverns of the mind. Alongside the Sleep Conductor, who dances freely in moments of pure joy, defeating encroaching anxieties and ultimately embodying self love, we experience a vocabulary of symbols against a dramatic and emotive colorscape. Caves, rabbits, small bodies of water, and changing sunsets communicate feelings on intuitive rather than intellectual levels. 

Is there a hidden logic to the unconscious mind? As each of us falls asleep each night we traverse between agency and vulnerability in a foreign land where we may only briefly visit. In I’m Falling Asleep, Shelby Rahe dares to occupy this liminal, impossible space, connecting us to her otherworldly visions, leading us through logic to what lies beyond.

Written by Marsha Mack

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Shelby Rahe is a director and artist living in Austin, TX. In films, writing, sculpture and installations, she mines the neglected corners of the mind. Her art is an exploration of how dreams and the unconscious relate to her past experience with psychosis.