How and why did you start your artistic career?

In the beginning, I wasn’t pursuing a career. I learned classical and photorealistic painting during my childhood and adolescence. Then I stopped, did an apprenticeship in the textile industry, and later studied communication design. I reconnected with painting around 2020. At that time, I felt a lack of answers and a longing for resonance with life. I thought about studying philosophy to gain a deeper understanding of the human condition, so I attended a few classes, but it didn’t feel right.

In 2020, I completely shifted my work to an intuitive approach, without references, in contrast to how I had learned as a child. Since then, there has been an unbroken drive to create. The work correlates to the highest degree with my personality structure, like a psychogram. This is what the work looks like when I’m not trying to achieve any particular result. At the same time, there is something very primal in the paintings. For me, it is the perfect practice for reflecting on my decisions as well as on psychological dynamics and social principles in my environment. It’s like my underlying (visual) assumptions are looking back at me. I want to construct something from my inner world by engaging with the visual physicality of our shared surroundings, to find a common ground for connection.

In autumn 2024, I started a master’s program at HFBK Hamburg in the class of Jorinde Voigt, whose way of working has been a point of reference since my design diploma in 2017. Painting gives me the opportunity to connect with people whose work and initiatives in the field of arts I deeply resonate with. I’ve met plenty of lovely people through art and have connected with my existing circle of friends and close people on a deeper level. That’s possibly also one of the factors that fuels me.

How did you discover your medium and why did you choose it?

As I mentioned earlier, I learned to draw and paint as a child. So I had early access to watercolor, oil paint, oil and soft pastels, charcoal, graphite, you name it. When I started again in 2020, I had the opportunity to test my muscle memory and update my techniques.

At the moment, I mainly work with oil paints and soft pastels. With pastels, I’m able to work in a very unmediated way, using no tools other than my fingers. The resulting textures are perfectly blurry and soft. Oil painting allows me to uncover my subjects layer by layer. I basically paint in the tradition of the sfumato technique, using very thin glazes of oil paint. It all sums up to a vibrating gathering of colors. Like in life: every layer joins the conversation.

Can you tell us about your creative process? How does your work come to life? How long does it take you to create a piece?  When do you know it is finished?

For me, it is a lot more about the process, the flow, than a finished result. Which is also a bit paradoxical, because the process is so much driven by morphing and altering the figure which ultimately remains hidden beneath the surface layer.

Within my work, I am able to explore links and continuities in my compositions. Moreover, I feel like breaks in continuities or blurs are somehow a more honest view of our existence. I recognize the notion that some of us (me included) navigate ourselves with the idea that precision might help us find truth or guidance in recognizing what actually is. But it never is only one thing, really. Situations are always different and sometimes make no sense in rational ways. Plural aspects are true and vital at the same time: tenderness and the capability for aggression. You can, often unconsciously, feel resistance or shame toward something you love just as deeply and feel affection for. The same goes for curiosity and the longing for safety. Something can be disgusting and seductive at the same time.

Of course, we all know, there is no light without shadows, and that is very much true for painting, where you cannot even identify light without darkness. In my paintings, I found out that you cannot recognize a characteristic of an object without emphasizing the opposite aspect of it. That is something I am still exploring visually.

All these ambiguous aspects appear to be mutually dependent on each other, almost in an alchemical or Jungian way that contributes to the concept of the “whole.” At least that is very much true for me and my introspection on how I grew up.

Sometimes it feels like I’m asking questions by providing the most answers I can possibly give (to myself). The motifs make a vast offer of suggestions: most people can find associations for one or another texture or agree on shared visual representations. Such as aspects of the motifs appearing smooth or sharp, glossy or cold, warm and gentle, or airy and immaterial. There are all these precise qualities that seduce you into “knowing”, but in the end–what is it, really? An illusion made of pigments.

Every motif is an occasion to reflect on our approach to it: What do we want from it? How do we deal with breakages in continuity? Do we ignore aspects for the sake of a cohesive narrative? Are we looking at connections or diverging aspects? Do we hold space for differences, or even feel comfortable within pluralities? These questions are true for both the production of it and the reception in the end.

Outside of painting, I am a rather result-oriented person who always thinks about solving any possible problem that might occur. While painting, I allow myself this serendipity of finding something in an unplanned way or something unusual without thinking about its purpose.

When a painting is finally finished, I often think: I could never have imagined this beforehand. Each layer depends heavily on the one before. For me, it’s also like a process of getting to know the motif. And when I want to truly get to know something (or someone), I can’t skip any steps along the way.

I think that’s a beautiful reminder: Sometimes you must not know what the result of a situation will be. As long as you put in the care and curiosity for every next step, it might lead you to something that actually can make “sense” in retrospect.

A painting takes at least 20–30 hours. When I am at the studio, I paint in sessions of around 6–10 hours each. I need at least four sessions for one painting, but it can easily go up to 100+ hours per piece. I know that a painting is finished when every aspect of it is nurtured and stands both on its own and in some correlation and harmony with the whole–when there is a physical sense of above and below and a relationship to the surrounding context.

There are many notions in my process that follow these principles of relationships. I guess the work strongly mirrors a longing for emancipation and autonomy and, at the same time, an awareness that nothing ever truly exists independently. That tension can feel quite conflicting, and it is rooted in both: the wound of having to take care of one’s own needs (a painful realization) as well as the hope and risk that you indeed don’t have to be alone if you share your vulnerabilities. It’s like a coping mechanism for this inner tension.

I can emphasize that in more detail: for example, working in diptychs or multi-panel pieces, or splitting a canvas, which allows me to separate aspects that once developed together. Like siblings who grow up together and take different paths later in life but always share the same history and context. I also enjoy the element of chance when rearranging multi-panel works to discover new connections within the piece. It invites a sense of spontaneity and irritation into an otherwise controlled way of working.

The almost photorealistic finish of the work helps me reach that degree of inner formal logic, as I am able to achieve similarities to the way our surrounding world represents itself in my visual apparatus. Like inner structures solidifying through external textures. Light phenomena and the aggregate state of the textures are crucial in that sense: the visual language of the paintings is technically very precise and controlled–like clear language promises to avoid misunderstandings. But in my painting, that never turns out to be fully true. It is precise, and yet, in the final consequence, it remains open and indeterminate to some degree.

Ultimately, it is about engaging with this paradox of finding the greatest possible precision for something that inherently possesses a diffuse character. It’s like a (photo)realistic representation of an abstract state. In the end, there is a plurality of meanings. All equally existing.

Who are your favorite artists? Which ones are you inspired by?

I always return to the work of Wolfgang Tillmans. It gives me a deep sense of calm and belonging as a human being. When I read or listen to interviews with him, I feel profoundly inspired and grounded in the present moment. I feel very much at home with his belief that everything counts equally, and I’m constantly moved by his attentiveness and his welcoming attitude toward even the painful aspects of life.

I am also a fan of Tauba Auerbach. I find the versatility of her work, from objects to drawings, marblings on paper, typographic pieces, and even performative contributions, deeply inspiring. I admire her seemingly boundless openness to experimentation and how each of her works unmistakably unites her observations on embodied knowledge and craftsmanship with a scientific reflection on larger systems. I think she is a brilliant example of genuine artistic research.

To name a younger artist in the field: I love the work of Louise Giovanelli. I think we share a fascination with light phenomena and the seductive quality that painting can provide. I find her position very intelligent. She manages to translate social phenomena very elegantly into these lush and magnificent paintings.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at the work of Michaël Borremans, whom I discovered only recently. I admire his paintings for their unique uncanniness, positioned precisely at the sweet spot between absurdity and horror, and, of course, for their insane painterly quality.

The most obvious one would be H.R. Giger, whom I actually didn’t know when I (re)started in 2020. I hadn’t even seen the Alien movies at that point. But of cause his references are all over the place. I can clearly sense a kinship to my own interests. In my opinion, his work vividly emphasizes our own alienated psychological aspects and social fears.

And of course Francis Bacon, who was also an inspiration for Giger. Bacon’s colors seem forever fresh and are both unusual and distinctive. When I stand in front of one of his works, I resonate deeply with its fragmentation and with an inner world of pleasure and pain. In my daily life, I tend to notice the fractured nature of the people or objects in my surroundings. For me, to look at a work by Bacon is to truly enter a wound.

In literature, Georges Bataille is a figure I keep returning to. I discovered his body of work in my early twenties, and it immediately resonated with me — especially his exploration of the duality of opposites, with a recurring focus on spirituality, transcendence, eroticism, and death.

And so that the interview doesn’t end with the word death, I’d like to thank you for the questions and for the space and support you’ve provided me with. I think it’s very important to show up for each other, to ask questions, and to keep space open for reflection and ideas. So–thank you!

THE ARTIST

Name: Anja Rausch
Residence: Berlin

FEATURED WORKS