SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The German painter Birgit Jensen explores the relationship between truth and artifice -- and the role mediation plays in it -- through the unlikely medium of landscape painting. Her process begins with photographs, which she digitally edits, then manipulates into layers of geometric marks or patterns. From them, she painstakingly constructs multi-layered paintings on canvas. Up close, the imagery breaks into pixelated noise. From a distance, they appear nearly photographic.
These paintings are the physical embodiment of the old riddle about the relationship between perspective and understanding: the closer one stands to the problem, the more inscrutable it becomes.
They’re a reminder of our increasing dependence on screens for our comprehension of the world, and that more and more, our experiences are not “real,” but are designed, constructed, or virtual. Jensen's paintings, though convincing, are not actual places, but complex arrangements of hue and pattern that the artist has stitched together -- not to reflect the world truthfully -- but to create a mood.
They’re also artworks that sit squarely within the pastoral tradition of the idealized, artist-invented landscape. Historically, those timeless, romanticized representations offered a refuge… the promise of serenity. Or cynically, indulged the urban-dweller’s fantasy of a simpler time and life. But while Jensen does indeed create very beautiful paintings, her unconventional color choices and mannered compositions make no pretense of veracity. Is she hinting that perhaps that place of safety we’re searching for is too good to be true? And if so, are all of our longings unattainable?
Birgit Jensen was the winner of the 2025 “Artists’ Prize” in Die Grosse at the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf. Born in Würzburg, Germany in 1957, she studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. Solo museum exhibitions include Kunstverein Leverkusen Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany; Atelier Schloss Jägerhof, Düsseldorf; Pictura, Dordrecht, Netherlands; Museum Ratingen, Germany; Kunstverein Villa Wessel, Iserlohn, Germany; Kunstverein Linz am Rhein, Germany; Kunstverein Duisberg, Germany; Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. Jensen lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. This is her third solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery.
“I sit on a rock on a slope in the Swiss Alps and cry out across the valley. An answer comes back. The voice is different from my own, though the intonation is similar. The mountains mimic my call. In my paintings, I capture their reply.” (Birgit Jensen, 2025)
