Veins of Life
Veins of Life is a handmade artist book by Eva-Maria Raab – an ode to life, love, and water as the source of all existence. Photographic works, cyanotypes, poetic texts, and wordplay intertwine to create a multilayered narrative about connection, transience, and the continuous flow of life.
Printed on transparent paper, the book reveals new depths and relationships with every turned page. Images and texts overlap, dissolve, and merge into ever-changing constellations, echoing the movement of water itself.
Veins of Life is available in two editions: a limited Collector’s Edition of 15 copies (+ 3 artist’s proofs), each including an original cyanotype created with water from the Danube River, and an artist-book booklet edition. Both versions bring together Raab’s long-standing artistic exploration of water, light, and time with her lifelong devotion to poetry.
The publication also features a poetic accompanying text by Vasja Nagy-Hofbauer and is presented in English and Chinese.
Published by Triton Ediciones (Barcelona - Hong Kong - Vienna) in 2026.
In his novel Danube, Claudio Magris first set out to find the beginning, the source, a tiny crack, an eye that looks both into and out of the underground. From there, he followed the river, closely attached to it .... .... he travelled all the way to the delta, where the river together with all its lovers .... A review of Eva-Maria Raab‘s artistic oeuvre shows that for years she has, in fact, been devoting herself to flowing, blending, and identifying with the river in both a bodily and conceptual sense, but above all in a spiritual one. This part of her oeuvre seems like a kind of pagan ritual. I de- scribe it as pagan in the sense of the primordial nature of ancient worship, the awareness of the connection and in- terdependence of humans with the natural world ....
„你去向何方？“你问着拍岸的波浪，问着深处那看 不见却能感受到的静默潜流。这个问题背后，是对 河流的臣服，一场驶向未知的旅程，对那种既无起 点也无终点、既美丽又令人恐惧的浪漫主义情怀的 臣服——这种情怀源于自身的无限，归于万物的无 限。从岸边，你用网捞取、捕捉水流带来的一切， 试图抓住些许时光正驱向远方的东西。你好奇地向 上游望去，看看它带来了什么；再望向下游，看着 它流逝而去。或者，你毫无缘由地凝视水面，只因 为它在，带着它的起伏波动 .... "回顾伊娃·玛丽亚·拉布的艺术作品，可以看出多年来，她实际上一直在从身体和概念层面，但首先是从精神层面，致力于与河流一同流动、交融并与其认同。她这部分作品，宛如一种异教仪式。我之所以用异教来形容，是取其古代崇拜的原始本性，即那种意识到人类与自然世界的联系与相互依存 ...
