2024Xenia Hausner - Exiles 1, 2017 - Set

"Exiles 1" is the first motif in a four-part series of works by Xenia Hausner, one of Austria's most significant artists.

Xenia Hausner comes from a Viennese family of artists. She studied set design in Vienna and London and designed numerous theatre and opera productions. Since 1992, she has primarily focused on painting. Hausner's large-scale works display intensely coloured, artfully composed scenes that she photographs in the studio and then translates into painting. Women are a central and complex theme in her work. "Exiles 1" refers to the images of fleeing people that have characterised all of Europe since 2015. It shows young people at the window of a train. However, their appearance does not match the conventional views of refugees; we ourselves could be these people. Whether it is a departure or an arrival is not clear – Hausner's images are ambivalent.