Mara Mattuschka: Twist

1. Febr. - 30. March 2024

The exhibition is extended until 27. April 2024!

Mara Mattuschka interviews Mara Mattuschka, on the occasion of the exhibition "Twist", at Galerie Knoll, November 2023.I: Why "Twist"?MM: Among other things, twist means "surprising turn". After so many years of painting it happened to me that my way of painting suddenly and spontaneously changed, that surprised me.I: How do you explain that?MM: It certainly has to do with the wide fan brush. I recently discovered it for myself. It does what it wants, it's almost impossible to guide.I: I see. For this your figures seem quite congruent, almost realistic.MM: This brush with its fanned out hair produces lots of lines of regret. There is always a line that points the way to the believable. I: This figure is also in a "twist", isn't it? It seems to be twisting around her own axis.MM: Or the viewer circles around it. I: And there is nothing around it?MM: Only vibrating ether and desert sand. The figure is, so to speak, out of context. It is its own context.I: In the spectrum of the diversity of its metamorphoses, the body sometimes appears powerful, or embryonic?MM: Sometimes taken, or also stoically centred. Human and animal at the same time. The body is an immediate presence that needs no language. I: Without language - is one still human? MM: Language has to be stopped so that the world can change again. Painting helps.I: Without language, doesn't one become like... blind?MM: I often have the feeling that I paint without eyes. When the painting should be very intense, that is.I: Is the intensity still bearable in this state? MM: Well, in such a case, intensity would have to be regarded as content rather than degree. I: Speechless, then. Nevertheless, an urge to communicate oneself can be read in the paintings. They want to communicate something to us, it seems to me.MM: Hm, yes, paintings hold secrets.I: But you know their secret?MM: I think everyone can discover their own secret in them. A picture and a viewer are a unity that never repeats itself.I: And you didn't consciously put the secret into it?    MM: No, paintings have a life of their own, independent of me. I: When they are finished, or from the beginning?MM: Almost from the beginning. I brush around until the painting shows me what it needs. I: The picture takes control away from you?MM: Exactly. And it's good that way. A painting becomes what it wants. I: Everything seems to float somehow.MM: Yes. We are all floating. It's a queasy feeling - to feel that you are floating in the middle of ignorance, but that you are not the middle of this ignorance.