Global Art Affairs Foundation
„PERSONAL STRUCTURES – Crossing Borders“
European Cultural Centre, Venice 2015
ISBN 978-94-90784-18-8
Xenia Hausner
A Puzzle to Myself
My pictures tell stories that elude a straightforward reading. West and East: what at first seems to be a snapshot of daily life is actually a multiply refracted and reflected perspective on life in a world where cultures are interwoven. An Asian and a European girl in school uniforms, connected via a global symbol of capitalism, three young women from the West standing in front of a North Korean propaganda billboard, people between tangles of cables and neon lights, between nature and big city life.
Seismographic recognition is the issue, reciprocal curiosity and attraction – scenes that are not realistically readable. In my work people play roles in the biographies of others. They are like actors cast in a play. I write the play and then look for the characters for material located within myself. Often the reconstruction is labor intensive. My paintings live from the incarnate moment, from the automatization of drives, the sensual relining of vision and of its implementation.
It is not my objective to present clear solutions, only a precision of the fragment at hand. There is a more pointed, a distilled message in these fragments, and I find no solution to the puzzle. Still, I try to capture an inner substance. The situations are ambiguous, but the viewer understands them nevertheless because he or she is moved by them. The viewer interprets the pictures through his or her own collection of experience. The more questions a picture triggers in the viewer due to its visual inconsistencies, the closer I come to my goal. I remain a puzzle to myself.