“Creativity emerges from doing, not from nothing.” Katharina von Werz's main concern here is the transformation of the subject through the process of painting, drawing and working in clay. The human figure, the central subject of her painting over the last decades, is thus severely abstracted while always remaining recognisable – in a mysterious liminal state of being. Energetic and moving, it emerges and disappears at the same time. The subject as an occasion for a pictorial idea becomes changeable and, if necessary, gives way to an optical illusion - and pure painting predominates, which could and should be surprising, and could and should be beautiful.

“There is a permanent exchange between appearance and disappearance, sometimes even an extreme tension between the need to hold the theme in place and the urge to release it. Nothing is anecdotal in this painting. Fleeting scenarios are set in a context which is governed by pure painterly rules”

Text by Michael Semff “Bewegungsströme bildnerischer Phantasie”, in: Katharina von Werz: Bilder, Zeichnungen, Skulpturen, Exhibition catalogue: Rathausgalerie der Landeshauptstadt München, Munich 2004, P. 11.