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Lot Essay
"There are too few words and that is why I draw."
Many of the characters in Lassnig's pictures seem a mere breath away from hysteria, although some look simply bewildered, mute, lumpen, as if experiencing the kind of feeling that can only manifest itself wordlessly. There are myriad tussles here between antagonists, lovers, subjects, the self; occasionally the protagonists stare directly out of the picture, but often they are too absorbed in their own worlds that they seem oblivious to their exposure. Sometimes, the only access to their state of mind is through the gesture of their limbs, their skin, the look in their eyes or the curve of their lips. They float, all of them, in colour; details beyond the figure are banished. "Background," Lassnig has commented, "creates mood and atmosphere, and I don't need that" (Maria Lassnig quoted in H. Firedel and M. Mühling, Maria Lassnig, Munich 2009.)
Many of the characters in Lassnig's pictures seem a mere breath away from hysteria, although some look simply bewildered, mute, lumpen, as if experiencing the kind of feeling that can only manifest itself wordlessly. There are myriad tussles here between antagonists, lovers, subjects, the self; occasionally the protagonists stare directly out of the picture, but often they are too absorbed in their own worlds that they seem oblivious to their exposure. Sometimes, the only access to their state of mind is through the gesture of their limbs, their skin, the look in their eyes or the curve of their lips. They float, all of them, in colour; details beyond the figure are banished. "Background," Lassnig has commented, "creates mood and atmosphere, and I don't need that" (Maria Lassnig quoted in H. Firedel and M. Mühling, Maria Lassnig, Munich 2009.)