Couples, 2021 / 2022

The seven-part Couples series refers to masterpieces of the early Renaissance: van Eyck, Memling, Dürer and Cranach. Stratmann constructs a flat, niche-like pictorial space in the works and shows the picture within the picture as hanging on an imaginary museum wall. In front of the double portraits of Adam and Eve, there is another human couple from a different culture. They stand with their backs to the painting of the biblical couple and look at us head-on. We cannot escape this multiple eye contact, nor the obvious culture clash between the familiar and the strange. The quote from one of the many postcards written in large letters above each work reinforces this impression. With these pictures, the artist creates space for thoughts about near and far, foreign and familiar. The fine line between the colonizing gaze, exoticism and xenophobia becomes visible. A momentum of hope for overcoming ethnic, geographical, cultural, gender-specific and even temporal boundaries is revealed, and with it a space of hope for encounters.