Rissa – Ich male wieder

With the exhibition Rissa – Back to painting, DIE GALERIE dedicates to the wife of the painter Karl Otto Götz, who passed away in 2017, an extensive overview of her creative work. The artist, born Karin Martin in 1938, was a student of the master of Informel at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and from 1965 also his wife. Both cultivated an intense exchange around art and society, researching, working, writing and thinking in unison. Yet by 1964 Rissa had already distanced herself from the informal style of painting and embarked on her own artistic path towards representational painting. From the very beginning, it was her intention to stand out with her art and to create something innovative and unique: “I want to depict unusual relationships between objects and actions that occur in reality but are seldom observed. In addition, I want to depict objects and actions in a way that is only possible in painting, but which has not yet been realised by any painter,” the artist wrote in 1966. In her compelling, tension-filled works, Rissa deals in her own way with political and socially critical themes that play a prominent role in social life and affect people in their everyday lives: Global conflicts, religion, sexuality, social interactions, the approach to the environment and the use of natural resources, phobias, neuroses and addictions – all these topics are the object of a profound analysis that unfolds within the two dimensions of the canvas. Through the vibrant power of her colours, Rissa draws the viewer in, first shocking him with the brutal honesty of her illustrations and, in the next step, challenging him to think critically about the uncomfortable truths hidden in her works. After many years in which Rissa had put herself on the sidelines, she now finds time and new inspiration for her own art. With around 30 paintings, prints and drawings, DIE GALERIE proudly presents Rissa’s figurative, narrative and very individual visual language. Due to the influence of Karl Otto Götz on Rissa’s painting as well as the profound connection between the two artists, DIE GALERIE simultaneously presents a cabinet exhibition dedicated to the master of the Art Informel.