MARIE MIKLUS
Leichte Last, Mixed media on canvas, 2025, 135 x 190 cm, courtesy the artist and New Art GbR

The artist says:
My painting stems from the urge to make inner states visible. In my work, animals and creatures embody projections of fear, violence, longing, and vulnerability. These eerie figures often consist of fragmented bodies. They are part animal, part human, and appear like mythical beings that one remembers only in fragments, as if from a dream. When the boundaries between humans and animals dissolve, the protective mechanisms of rational thought also dissolve.

I am interested in the tension that arises between chance and control during the painting process. I work with techniques such as monotype, grattage, and printmaking in my paintings, as well as automatic drawing and collaborative drawing.

When I paint, I start with the canvas on the floor and sit right above it, in very close physical proximity to the painting. After I’ve hung the canvas, I continue working associatively: I decipher creatures and figures within the structure of the background and then consciously work to bring these beings to life. As the work slowly takes shape, individual parts of the painting become imbued with symbolic meaning. The bright, almost cheerful complementary colors draw the eye, only to ultimately reveal something unsettling or uncomfortable.

My artistic practice draws equally from inner contradictions—where pain distorts into the grotesque and tenderness reveals something monstrous—as well as from psychology, stories, and myths. I am interested in the space where the personal and the collective intersect. The images remain open-ended and invite individual interpretations. Through this dialogue, these interpretations flow back into my work—shaped by my own experiences and the cultural backgrounds of the viewers—only to eventually resurface in new forms.