Xenia Hausner’s painting begins in photography. She stages photos as a basis for painting. She produces and directs her photographic scenarios in her studio, using one or more characters. The next step in her work process is to turn photographic raw material into painting. For that, she begins with a moment of resistance. “I’ve got a photo that stimulates something contradictory in me. And this contradiction is what sets me in motion. I paint the contradiction to the photo. That is the decisive point.” Pleasure and disappointment are both engraved into her pictures. To use her own words:
»I don’t illustrate photos, I mess them up«