Maria Leisner: The Poetry of Movement and Femininity in Painting and Materiality

Maria Leisner (*1995, Ludwigsburg) explores the complexities of movement, female identity, and physicality in a distinctive visual language. Located at the intersection of body politics and painterly material research, her works offer both intimate insights and universal statements. Leisner lives and works in Stuttgart and is a graduate of the State Academy of Visual Arts in Stuttgart. Her works appeal to collectors in equal measure for their emotional depth and technical virtuosity.

A recurring motif in Maria Leisner's work is her striking depiction of bodies in motion - particularly figures that seem to plunge weightlessly into the water. These scenes capture with extraordinary intensity the moment of letting go - that fleeting rupture between control and surrender. Through her expressive yet precise brushwork, Leisner succeeds in transforming these seconds between sky and water into a visual choreography of courage, lightness, and inner freedom, making the jump far more than a sporting motif for Leisner: it becomes a metaphor for departure, joie de vivre, and confidence in one's own power to act. This image of transition - powerful, vulnerable, and full of potential - runs like a thread through her entire artistic oeuvre.

Leisner's work also revolves around the redefinition of female physicality in contemporary art. Inspired by her experiences in a midwifery practice during her studies, she developed a visual language that understands birth, vulnerability, and strength as interrelated poles of human existence. Her figures in the "Pure Series"-often anonymized female torsos-become vehicles for a universal narrative of autonomy and self-empowerment.

Leisner's painterly approach combines old master precision with modern gestures. The sculptural modeling of the bodies through contrasts of light and shadow gives the figures a sculptural presence, while the deliberately raw edges of the painting document the process of creation. This dialectic of control and chance, of perfection and imperfection, becomes the central stylistic device of her artistic statement.

Works like Leisner's have had a significant impact on current discussions of body politics and material aesthetics.

See her work at E30 Gallery Frankfurt.