Marina Bretschneider lives and works in Montalto (Liguria, Italy) keeping a close connection to her native city, Cologne, Germany, and her favourite city, San Francisco, USA. From 1976 until 1984, her training and studies in painting under the tutelage of Dieter Krämer and Karl Marx took place at the Kölner Werkschule (Academy of Fine Arts, Cologne, Germany), which is somewhat legendary these days. Karl Marx, the maverick of expressive figurative painting, is considered the forerunner and father of a new style in German paintings. This style was born in the early eighties and named the "New Wild Ones" ("Neue Wilde"), which is reflected in Marina Bretschneider's earlier works. Two semesters of studies in Florence followed, and had a lasting effect on her creativity and career as an artist. Marina Bretschneider could be called an anachronistic artist, since her art and her life are intricately interwoven. She is an artist, who does not work on the basis of conceptualism, but rather from a level of supreme intuition. Thus, it is not surprising that the formal and topical development of her artistry is parallel to her personal process of experience and, consequentially, maturing.

Her affection to Italy caused a subtle metamorphosis. It is almost safe to say that her state of creative being is an "easy-going" one. With this attitude, she designs a huge sculpture -- some sort of Siren, and at the same time designs the interior of a five hundred year old house. Marina Bretschneider's artistry is comprehensive -- new materials are tested; interiors are decorated. The favored themes in her paintings, however, have not changed -- dealing with deep human experiences of "birth," and the interpretation of "life and death," which is inescapable. The act of painting happens in a quasi-different state of consciousness. It is for this state, that her paintings develop into a culmination of what is characteristic for the artist's personality: "spiritedness" and "vitality." Given that this is being reflected in the expressive conception of her paintings, it is exactly what constitutes the specific qualities, in particular her truthfulness, of Marina Bretschneider's exceptional artistry.

Dr. Maria Linnsmann, Burg Wissem Museum, Troisdorf