[1] Sonja Alhäuser was born in Kirchen (Westerwald), Germany in 1969 and studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie (State Art Academy) in Düsseldorf, becoming "Meisterschülerin" (Master Disciple) of Fritz Schwegler in 1995.
She has received a large number of awards, including the “Peter-Mertes-Scholarship” of the “Bonn Kunstverein” in 1997, the “Förderpreis der Stadt Düsseldorf” in 2000 and the “Dorothea Erxleben-Scholarship” of the Federal State of Lower Saxony, 2007–2009.
[2] The ephemeral character of the installations does not only point at the transitoriness of life but also sets her work in the context of venerable traditions: for instance Joseph Beuys who likewise employed transitory materials (like fat and honey) whilst the banquet as an artistic subject reaches from Petronius Arbiter's Cena Trimalchionis to paintings of kings' banquets (where one felt honoured to be invited to watch the nobility feasting) and finally the Last Supper.
Furthermore, she works in traditional media like watercolours, acrylic and crayon by means of which she is creating distributive, all-over-like compositions of animals, fruits, vegetables, clothing, body parts, and mythological figures.
[4] In Sonja Alhäuser's work "Emsrausch," a sensory-rich scene is created, blending edible elements with artistic media such as butter sculptures and miniature watercolor paintings[1], along with the incorporation of surveillance cameras for observation.