Maria Lassnig

Self with Dragon

26 September 2025 – 28 February 2026

Hong Kong

Opening Reception

26 September 2025
5 – 7 pm

Dates

26 September 2025 – 28 February 2026

Location

Hong Kong Directions

Materials

Press Release

Inquiry

‘I step in front of the canvas naked, as it were. I have no set purpose, plan, model or photography. I let things happen. But I do have a starting point, which has come from my realization that the only true reality are my feelings, played out within the confines of my body.’

— Maria Lassnig

The oeuvre of the seminal painter Maria Lassnig (1919 – 2014) covers more than 70 years of intense work between the end of the Second World War and her death in 2014. At the center of her profound research into painting is a unique interest in the relation between awareness and the human body—particularly the artist’s body—which Lassnig termed ‘body awareness.’ Titled ‘Self with Dragon,’ this is Lassnig’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. Presenting a selection of paintings and works on paper from 1987 to 2008, the show provides an insight into Lassnig’s approach, how she questions perception beyond the visual, how our body senses as a whole and the ways in which language becomes part of such perceptions.

Lassnig first developed her theory of ‘body awareness’ in the 1940s; in the decades that followed, she rendered her physical and emotional states in arresting visual terms, often portraying herself as fragmented, hybrid or in direct dialogue with abstract shapes, machines and animals.

Anchoring the exhibition is ‘Selbst mit Drachen (Self with Dragon)’ (2005), which the exhibition takes its title from. Lassnig refers to the reptile‑like, usually winged hybrid creature of Western mythology—a dragon—which represents a threat to humankind and bears little resemblance to its East Asian counterpart. The battle against such a dangerous beast can refer not only to external forces but also to internal ones—traits perceived as negative, socially undesirable and repressed aspects of the personality. This is a confrontation that Lassnig has embraced in her art and particularly in this painting. ‘Viktory (Victory)’ (1992) was painted shortly after a motorcycle accident Lassnig had in 1992. The work is marked by the motif of a wide, angular ‘V’—a reference to both the artist’s posture and the gesture of triumph. Lassnig merges elements within this graphic work, producing a breathing head-body that appears at once vulnerable and defiant, blurring the lines between machine, body and myth.

Several abstract self-portraits in the exhibition move beyond the ‘retinal image’ of reality, seeking instead to embody a reality that is physically sensed and emotionally resonant. In ‘Selbst abstrakt I / Bienenkorb Selbst (Self Abstract I / Beehive Self)’ (1993), Lassnig depicts her form as a permeable vessel, filled with pressure and energy, culminating in a head that resembles a traditional beehive, while ‘Selbst als Blüte (Self as a Flower)’ (1993) is a self-ironic reflection on aging, drawing visual parallels between female anatomy and plant structures, rendered with irony and tenderness.

Despite being known for her large format oil on canvas works, Lassnig’s works on paper are intimately connected to her singular approach, translating interior bodily sensations to line and value on the page. She noted in 1992, ‘The drawing is closest to the moment. Every moment has only one possibility.’

‘Liegende (Reclining Figures)’ (2000) and ‘Liebespaar (Lovers)’ (2003) represent two facets of Lassnig’s late paper works: the solitary, interior body and the ambiguous dynamics of relational proximity. Both employ minimal line and color to capture sensations that defy clear form; these bodies in flux invite the viewer to feel rather than decode. This distilled approach continues in ‘Mr and Mrs Kliny’ (2004) where loosely rendered forms suggest dual figures locked in ambiguous relation.

The exhibition also features a selection of works in pastel or pencil alone, such as ‘Ober und Unterkörper (Torso and Lower Body)’ (1990) and ‘Die Vielfalt (Diversity)’ (2003). These monochrome compositions strip the body down to its barest contours yet remain deeply expressive. Commenting on the significance of her works on paper, Lassnig states, ‘Each drawing is a would-be oil painting, for I never repeat any drawing as an oil painting, they are autonomous.’

About the Artist

Maria Lassnig

Born in Carinthia in Southern Austria in 1919, Maria Lassnig’s (1919 – 2014) work is based on the observation of the physical presence of the body and what she termed ‘body awareness’, or ‘Körpergefühl’ in German. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the midst of the Second World War. Then, in post-war Europe, she quickly moved away from the state-approved academic realism in which she was trained, looking to Austria’s own avant-garde past, such as the coloration of Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele’s expressionist treatment of figuration.

Her early years were marked by experiences with various ‘isms’, including artistic currents in surrealism and automatism from the late 1940s, followed by ‘art informel’ and post-cubism in the 1950s. After moving to Paris in 1960, an innovative figuration, expressive and painterly, was beginning to emerge. In the next few years, she developed narrative paintings with one or more figures, at times borrowing from technoid forms of science fiction set in absurdly caricatured scenes. Animal-like, monstrous self-portraits emerged alongside this group of works.

In 1968, Lassnig moved to New York where her artistic work once again switched direction—she turned to external realism and painted portraits, nudes and still lifes, at times combining these with her ‘body awareness’ self-portraits. Many of her paintings, drawings and watercolors were devoted to recording her physiological states through a direct and unflinching style. Utilizing contrasting colors such as greens, pinks and blues, as well as strong body shapes to give her paintings a powerful, even drastic impact, Lassnig looked to herself, a female artist in a predominantly male world, as her primary subject.

Of her artistic process, Lassnig has said: ‘I step in front of the canvas naked, as it were. I have no set purpose, plan, model or photography. I let things happen. But I do have a starting-point, which has come from my realization that the only true reality are my feelings, played out within the confines of my body. They are physiological sensations: a feeling of pressure when I sit or lie down, feelings of tension and senses of spatial extent. These things are quite hard to depict.’ Her famed portraits and self-portraits are often treated with a playful irony, even in her depictions of the aging body and psychological turmoil.

In 1980, Lassnig was awarded a professorship—with a focus on painting and animation film—at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. As a result, her self-portraits repeatedly explored issues of overload and enforced estrangement. She then began dealing more extensively with mythological contents, with nature and ‘rural life,’ and continued her exploration of figure-ground tensions. From the late 1990s, Lassnig turned to the great existential themes with her so-called Drastic Pictures, such as the relationship between the sexes and generations, unchosen lifestyles, as well as oppression, destruction, impermanence, and death.

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