Rouli Lecatsa’s creation process is direct. She transfers the directness of drawing into her painting and thus highlights the spontaneous, urgent moment in which an idea is captured and put on paper. This can be seen particularly clearly in, for example, the light lines, easily cast onto the paper, of the painting “H+R” (1992). This aspect of drawing is also preserved in her more recent works. However, the forms’ openness is increasingly replaced by closed compositions. In “Und immer (noch) lockt das …” (“ and God Created …Woman ”) (2015), the outlines are increasingly organic. Figures are stylized in favor of a statement. In “Figuren” (“Figures”) (also 2015), both persons are created out of a common basic form. They are fit into one another and simplified – a bodily being, not really human, yet extremely expressive. These deformed, emotionally laden figures may be comparable to Maria Lassnig’s body pictures, since she is not exactly concerned with figures, either, but with expression.

Despite their emotional charge, the more recent works in particular feature a new lightness due to this reduction of forms, which goes along with a subversive or obvious irony when it comes to the content of the work. This irony significantly contributes to the communication of the pictures. It allows for the viewers to regard that which is portrayed in a more differentiated way. At the same time, it creates a level of communication that has a broader and often unconscious effectiveness, compared to a purely rational representation.

Simone Krüger, Art Historian