Xenia Hausner merges representations of life and character with the theatrical, painting large-scale figures in bold, expressionistic color set against flat, patterned backdrops, as well as scenes of heightened emotion and catastrophe. A former set designer, Hausner created over 100 sets for theater, opera, and film over the course of her career, before moving to Berlin in the 1990s to work full-time on her painting. Formerly a mere step in Hausner’s process, photographs now sometimes constitute the basis of the work itself, worked into compositions of collage and acrylics. Critics have likened her works to those of her Expressionist forbears Otto Dix and Max Beckmann.