#lassnig

In 2013, she would complete her final piece, Selbstporträt mit Pinsel (Selfportrait with Brush). Her gaunt face looks down at us through a sea of white paper, her left arm (a few meandering strokes on the page) cuts through the blankness with a lazily sketched fist raised high above her head. Charged with tense energy, the artist seems to have caught the moment just in time—stilling herself before her ghostly brush could hit the canvas once more.

The 1967 Selbstporträt als Prophet depicts—in warm pink, red, and yellow tones—only the body parts Lassnig felt while painting, including part of her face, a section of her spine connected to her arms and hands, and her pelvis. The amorphous blob figure floats in three separate pieces against an undefined white background, a motif which was present in Lassnig’s work throughout her life, as “background creates mood and atmosphere and I [Lassnig] don't need that”.

Maria Lassnig | Woman Laokoon 1976

Painted when Lassnig was 86 years old, You or Me? (Du oder Ich) was one of a series of Nachtbilder (night pictures) among her drastic era. Rife with visual puns, Lassnig bares herself to the viewer in a moment of confrontation, forcing the passive spectator to become an active participant in her ultimatum.

Krankenhaus, Maria Lassnig. 1965.

Oil on canvas

 Esta artista se dedica a la pintura y destaca por sus autorretratos. También desarrolló un método de creación basado en la conciencia corporal o el body awareness, ya que a partir de los 70 desarrolló una obra centrada en una exploración de su propio cuerpo. Su figuración no es una figuración realista, sino que consiste en un espacio más ambiguo y abierto en el que explora manipulando esos cuerpos o retratos incluyendo elementos como objetos o animales, lo que dota de expresividad a su obra.