Exhibition at Atelier Friesenstraße
Bremen, 2012
In her sculptural work in stone and paper, Rosa Jaisli had previously focused on architectural forms. Her engagement with the Old Masters confronted her not only with the impressive architecture of the Renaissance, but also with portrait figures from that period and from the early Baroque. Fascinated by the inimitable intensity of Caravaggesque physiognomy and by the grace of Vermeer van Delft’s female faces, she began to extend her familiar approach to sculptural volume to a new subject area.
In her earlier work, geometric openings and passages appear in thick accumulations of paper, with cut-outs folded forward at the lower edge like hanging tongues. Here, by contrast, she cuts the linear framework of the portraits into single sheets of paper. Not as slits, but as thin paper serpents, the characteristic lines are peeled out and left hanging from the sheet like threads from a white tapestry. This creates the impression of something unfinished, as though someone still had to pass by and complete the work by snipping off the threads. The play of light and shadow and the different shades of white in the paper produce a remarkable plasticity, especially striking in the pearl necklace of the Lady with an Ermine. Like a drawing with shading and white heightening, these figure pieces characterize their recognizable models with charming lightness.