Dorothee Liebscher

The starting point is often a real place, a photographic fragment, a memory. Yet this origin does not remain intact. Liebscher dismantles, combines, tilts perspectives, dissolves boundaries between inside and outside. What emerges is not a depiction, but a transformation: a parallel world that feels familiar while eluding any clear sense of place.

Here, space is not background but protagonist. Buildings, passages, and vegetal structures exist in a constant tension between stability and fragility, orientation and disorientation. Architecture appears as something seemingly solid, yet always vulnerable to being penetrated and reclaimed by the organic. Nature and architecture do not meet here as opposites, but as a liaison – a symbiosis in which both spheres enter into continuous dialogue. From this friction arises a pictorial logic that does not describe so much as keep things in motion.

This attitude is also reflected in her painterly process. Liebscher works in layers, tentatively and openly. Watery acrylics establish the first delicate structures, which are later intensified through oil paint. Yet what came before does not disappear: it remains visible, supporting the painting from within and lending it a depth that feels not imposed, but grown. “I want the paint to remain visible as a medium,” she says – as the trace of a process that does not smooth over, but reveals.

That space becomes the true carrier of the image in Liebscher’s work is no coincidence. Her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig – one of the key institutions of contemporary painting – sharpened this perspective: painting not as representation, but as construction. A stance that finds in her works an independent and consistently developed form.

Human figures do not appear in these pictorial worlds – and yet they are present. The gaze of the viewer becomes the moving element itself. “The human enters this world through their gaze,” Liebscher says of this moment. What emerges is not a closed space, but a surface of projection: open, multilayered, deliberately unresolved.

Her works thus move between realism and fiction, between memory and design. They draw on real structures while simultaneously releasing them from their time. Past, present, and possible future overlap without becoming fixed. These are pictorial spaces that do not impose themselves, but invite.

Perhaps this is precisely their special quality: that they create spaces which do not explain, but enable. Spaces in which outer landscapes and inner states merge – and in which what we see only takes shape through our own gaze.

In parallel, from 2009 to 2017, she studied at Leipzig University, focusing on art and special education teaching, and graduated with a Master of Education.

Her work has been presented in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad, including at the Drents Museum (Netherlands), at Art Karlsruhe, and at Art Tausch in New York. She has also exhibited in galleries and art spaces in cities such as Nuremberg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, and Hamburg.

Inspiration can be a villa or a vacant lot I pass by, a visual encounter, or an inner image, almost like a daydream. However, much of it only develops on the canvas, as I discover, transform, and refine structures.

From idea to realization: how do you approach your work?
The process always begins with a sketch. I work until a sense of harmony in the composition emerges and the impulse for the piece becomes clear. In the execution, I follow structured, craft-based steps—from building my own canvases to completing the work in oil. At the same time, I consciously allow room for chance and spontaneous changes during the painting process.

Which artist would you like to have coffee with, and what would you talk about?
With Edward Hopper. About architecture, solitude, silence, and how spaces can carry emotions.

How did you come to art?
I have been deeply engaged with painting and creating since childhood. The desire to study art grew stronger over time. Despite resistance, I fought for it and ultimately followed the path that drew me in like a magnet.

Which people around you influence you?
Above all, my partner—through exchange and critical perspectives.

Imagine you had a time machine. Where would you go?
To the 1920s. I’m interested in the architecture, the social changes, and the atmosphere of that era.

Your greatest passion outside of art?
I am very interested in psychological topics, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a passion. I greatly enjoy being in nature and spending time with my loved ones.

What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a series of medium-format pieces and preparing a triptych, which will become the largest work I have created so far.