Rosina Rosinski

Artist Statement:

"I am a female, self-taught artist who was born in 1989 in Dortmund, Germany. I studied art theory and quit my master's degree in 2019. I just had a moment when theory did not make sense to me anymore. Everyone had something to say about art and none of us had ever had a brush or a can of paint in their hand. That is when I started painting autodidactically in 2019 while having a full-time job. I then stopped working and am a full-time painter since summer 2022. 

My paintings are basically processing life, the past and the present. They are large scale self- portraits which are based on Christian and mythological iconography. As a young Protestant girl I attended a Catholic school and when working at an auctionhouse for three years, I was surrounded by lots of old master's paintings. I translate that iconography of those artworks into the present and my own personal narrative by depicting personal experience.

My portraits focus mostly on the female body and the history of its depiction, pointing out the male gaze and long-established visual perceptions. The female bodies in my paintings become more and more muscular and I depict them larger than life. That way, they can occupy a whole room, they are present, more than I am most of the time and they reveal the discrepancy between physical and psychological strength and reverse stereotypes. Biblical and mythological characters are switched gender-wise. In painting nudes, often embedded in still-lives, I point out the relationship between human flesh and meat and how both are often equated in our society. In relating meat and flesh, topics of life, death and vanity are tackled.

My paintings, which in exhibitions give the recipient the feeling of entering a candy store at first glance, are really quite uncomfortable at second glance. I use bright colors and I have a very meticulous way of painting neat, print-like surfaces to conflict with dark subject matters."