Spring wreath, heartless | Lilli Elsner

On a textile surface painted in the background with a motif of locusts, some of which are almost faded silhouettes and some filled with a strong, deep red color, Lilli Elsner shows us several heads of a female figure. This figure is depicted with different facial expressions that repeat on the surface, showing us different emotions and moments in time. A yellow halo surrounds the central face, from which a spiral emanates that envelops all the other heads, as if in a whirlpool. The result is an image of extreme intensity and power, almost hypnotic.

Lilli Elsner, born in 1993, works with a range of different materials and media. In addition to her large-scale installations, which are often based on socio-political and societal moments, she draws and paints on paper and canvas. In her extraordinary imagery, humans and animals often stand directly opposite each other, sharing the space within the image. Creatures charged with cultural history, such as frogs and deer, find their way into the mystical imagery in which the same human figure always appears: the artist herself, the self-portrait.

"Art does not repeat itself, it is unique in every picture," says the artist herself, who dropped out of her studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin in 2012 after five semesters "without gaining any knowledge." Lilli Elsner works in her studio in Wachow, which she converted into a workshop over several years.

Other works by Lilli Elsner