Advertisement
Xenia Hausner
Austrian artist Xenia Hausner’s bright, expressive portraits blend cultures and experiences into a unique whole. Her solo exhibition “Look Left—Look Right” offers a new take on the classic east-west dichotomy. She tells Nina Gassauer about painting women and sourcing school uniforms in Hong Kong.
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
HK Magazine: What does a city like Hong Kong evoke in an artist like you?
Xenia Hausner: The streets of Hong Kong provoke a frenzy in my mind! The hustle and bustle, the restlessness, but also the colorfulness and the diversity are magnificent for visually oriented people. Here, you experience the polarization of a globalized world, like through a magnifying glass.
HK: Why did you look to Asia for inspiration?
XH: Two years ago, I had an exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum. The vernissage was attended by Chinese politicians. They contemplated my paintings that showed red-haired, dark-haired and fair-haired women. Then they approached me, saying: “They are all self-portraits, right?” That left me speechless. Full of self-confidence, they added: “Great! But why aren’t you painting us?”
HK: Why paint Hong Kong in particular?
XH: I am not a travel documentarian: this does not interest me at all. My works are more fragmentations of my stored visual funds, which enter my pictures in new formations. [When traveling] my mind is collecting ideas and concepts. Later, I reconstruct certain situations in my studios in Berlin or Vienna. [My paintings] are not a 1:1 reflection of reality. Take for example the situation of the people [living in cage homes]. I reconstructed it in my studio the way I perceived it: I built a cardboard box, and a Korean opera student and an Austrian art student did their best to squeeze in!
Advertisement