Inspired by her former career in set design, Xenia Hausner's enigmatic close-up paintings capture people, and predominantly women, in theatrically staged environments.
Read MoreBorn in Vienna, Hausner studied stage design at the city's Academy of Fine Arts, before moving to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she later settled.
Between the years of 1977 and 1992, Hausner pursued a career as a scenic designer at the Burgtheater in Vienna. During this time, she designed over 100 theatre, film, and opera productions across Europe at venues including La Monnaie / De Munt, Brussels; Schiller Theater, Berlin; and London's Royal Opera House, among others.
On moving to Berlin in 1992, Hausner changed tack and devoted herself to the practice of painting.
She is a founding member of Women Without Borders, an international non-profit organisation focused on female empowerment.
Humanity and human vulnerability are central themes in Xenia Hausner's work. Despite being rendered in bold colours and expressionistic brushstrokes, Hausner's subjects are imbued with feelings of both loneliness and desire, heightened by their close-up compositions.
Hausner's background in theatre permeates her large-scale, enigmatic paintings. Predominantly painting women, Hausner stages the figures in her frames in theatrical compositions–placing them in contrived positions, with figures often meeting the viewer's gaze.
Working from snapshots of daily life, Hausner's paintings draw from large-scale photographs often taken in studio. Various objects such as bicycles or car components stand in as stage props in her theatrical scenes, as seen in Das blinde Geschehen and Hotel Shanghai (both 2010).
Xenia Hausner's solo and group exhibitions include Unintended Beauty, KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin (2022); Xenia Hausner: True Lies, The Albertina Museum, Vienna (2020); Xenia Hausner, Forum Gallery (2019); Xenia Hausner – Exiles in 'Personal Structures: Crossing Borders', Palazzo Bembo, Venice (2017); and Soft Power, Leo Gallery, Shanghai (2015), among others.
Hausner's works can be found in the collections of major global collections such as Hong Kong Art Museum; Shanghai Art Museum; Today Art Museum Beijing; and the Albertina Museum, Vienna, among others.
Hausner's website can be found here, and her Instagram here.
Annabel Downes | Ocula | 2022
