Upon seeing the striking work of Jolanda
Richter, you will immediately succumb to
the familiarity and unsettling undertow of
her visual narratives. A lifelong student of
the arts, award-winning Richter interweaves
psychology and impeccable artistic skill into
her oil paintings.
“When I was a child, I preferred studying
art encyclopaedias for hours instead of
playing with other children,” Richter told
InSpades. “Paintings were a world in which I
found shelter.”
The majority of Richter’s collection centers
on women and children, often projecting
a sense of displacement, frustration and
non-sexualized nudity. In her oil painting
“Quintessence”, the ironic title brings a tragically
dark humour to the female experience.
Clad in lingerie and fused with a stone
background, the female subject is a carved
portrait attempting to emerge from solid
confinement. Fearsomely, her own fingers
sprawl across her face, tense hands both
pulling and compressing her visage into the
stone with a convulsed look of capture in
her eyes.
“Psychology is the key for decoding my
artwork,” said Richter. “The ideas for my paintings
develop from a complex inner process.”
“Quintessence” is merely one example f rom
Richter’s collection, where a female subject is
blocked by society’s expectations of what a
woman can and should be. Many paintings
include the female form placed against the
backdrop of a fissured stonewall, seeming
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