The painting style of Rissa is known for its reduction in style and focus on volume and form. Instead of relying on color transitions and light-dark gradations, she employs individual color areas that are placed alongside one another to create a spatial effect and a higher level of abstraction. The brush strokes used also give nods to Informalism as they break through the individual color areas.
Rissa’s subjects in her artwork encompass themes of sexuality, eroticism, emancipation, environmental dangers, and the animal kingdom. However, in the early 1990s, her focus shifted to include topics such as the Gulf War and Islam. Demonstrating this change, she painted veiled Bedouin men and women in pieces like ‘Wüstensohn’ from 1991 and ‘Wüstentochter’ from 1993. One notable painting from this period, ‘Am Golf’ from 1991, portrays a fish leaping out of an oil-infested and burning sea.
Aside from her paintings, Rissa has also released ink drawings and gouaches since the mid-1950s, often serving as accompaniments to poems by Karl Otto Götz.
www.ftn-books.com has several RISSA titles available.
