Claudia Rößger
I have never painted portraits that would depict real people. They are always made up but they represent a situation, feelings or desires. They are my partners; they impersonate a part of me. I base them in a more prescribed way on the collection, growing in my head, of forms which I observe around me - Claudia Röβger says about her drawings and paintings.
People are the protagonists of her work, but they lack realism. They are rather like human hybrids: with distorted bodies, faces hidden under masks, with patterns on their bodies. Freaks. Claudia’s work upsets and intrigues with a certain trait of morbidity, yet not lacking warmth and compassion. There is intimacy, which is favoured by the small format of her work.
Claudia Röβger’s drawings have a certain harshness, naturality, something childlike yet elegant and decorative. Strokes are delicate but decided and confident and are usually accompanied by an intensive and colourful stain – most often pink or red. The increasing ‘independence’ of the means of expression has caused some of her work to approach abstraction. This is a departure from naturalism without abandoning the tangible – she declares. It seems that it is in drawing that the ‘style Claudia’ reaches its fulfilment. Summarism, ‘not-saying till the end’, grasping the essence of things through limited means, all that is specific for these drawings to harmonize with her sensitivity.
