In the diversity of their pictorial universes, generations and cultural influences, the works of Dorothea Rockburne, Amy Feldman, Rosa Loy, Jenny Brosinski and Irina Ojovan are nonetheless linked by their profound complexity and simultaneous openness, which is not necessarily apparent at first glance. A complex combination of formal and content-related references that - instead of giving simple answers - rather raises questions, including those about painting per se. Dorothea Rockburne, born in 1932, studies at Black Mountain College in the 1950s. In addition to American professors like John Cage, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, former Bauhaus students such as Josef Albers and Walther Gropius and the mathematician Max Dehn also teach there. The latter brings her closer to mathematical principles in organic structures, which is groundbreaking for her work development. In the close coexistence, work and study of the students and professors, combined with open, flat hierarchies, key impulses of art history arise at the crossover of art, music, dance and literature. Rockburne uses industrial materials such as crude oil in her early works on paper and canvas, which she also calls "visual equations". Monochrome, cubic color surfaces, geometric drawings and folds from this period develop towards a dissolution of the sharp edged form with flowing color and structure transitions in the course of her oeuvre. Star and solar systems, ancient proportions, the golden ratio and spiritual issues become increasingly important in her practice. Irina Ojovan's minimalist forms, shaped by architectural forms and patterns with which she has been deeply familiar since childhood, also stem from geometry. In her works on paper, cardboard and canvas - the depth of the painting is reminiscent of a contemplative, Rothko-like color field - the colors stretch into the horizon and transition into impressions of landscapes and geometric bodies behind curved profiles. In Amy Feldman's canvases, we seem to encounter organic beings and structures. With their billowing bubbles, lurching lines, blobs, stretching and shrinking bodies in different shades of gray, they refer to pop and comic with titles such as “Milk Bulb”, “Boom!” and “Bang!”. The flowing, process-related change in form and volume seems almost tangible. Even if gray is traditionally more related to drawings and graphics, Amy Feldman's works are deliberately painterly. Gestures and brushstrokes are set dynamically, individual splashes repeatedly testify to their creation process. In Jenny Brosinski's paintings, the nature of their materiality and the energy of the artistic process become part of her work as well. Materials such as linen and cotton are often only slightly primed or preprocessed and sensitively equipped with traces of color, drawing and images. Her works bear titles such as “You know how I feel”,“Loose yourself” or “Like catching snowflakes with my tongue”,which in addition to a universal vocabulary, point to an individualized, introspective pictorial space. Pop merges with the personal, cartoon, object and word fragments remind of the subtle imagery of Cy Twombly, but also of the idea of the spontaneous, unadulterated element in automatism. Amorphous forms, constructions and deconstructions and overpaintings tell a personal story inscribed in them. In Rosa Loy's works, the viewer encounters a mysterious, surreal, mystical world of women full of symbolism. Following the more figurative and narrative tradition of her painterly history, her works also challenge an associative process in their reception. As she said in an interview in Ocula magazine in 2014, she is expecting female equality and representation. Dreams, hopes, past and future in the personal, but also general female cosmos, are reflected in her practice. The juxtaposition, but also the simultaneous delimitation of such diverse positions emphasizes the individual practice. Very heterogenous abstract to figurative positions in connection with concrete, narrative titles encourage to bring own experiences into their perception. The reflection of personal as well as painterly questions create an interconnected, synergetic cosmos within the exhibition. (Dr. Stefanie Staby, June 2021)