Almut Heise's works of the 1960s and 1970s are mostly dominated by pieces of furniture and furnishings. In a pointed and meticulous manner, Heise reverts to the typical forms of the 1950s. The design of the curtains, wallpaper and cushions makes the historical reference abundantly clear. With painterly means and unrealisms, however, the painter ensures that the painting creates an independent cosmos - outside the passing of time, outside the changeable.
The viewer immediately suspects that these rooms were never inhabited and will never be inhabited, that the cushions will never be moved, the record player will never be turned on or the cigarette will never be lit. The objects of the interiors unfold a haunting life of their own through the change in perspective and through compositional moving together and cutting in. The painting method summarily grasping all objects and the dull color intensify their cool presence.
"My paintings are realistic only insofar as you can believe from what you see that it could exist. I am not interested in whether it really exists so. I want to make you believe it. I want to paint objects and handle objects and quotations like other people handle colors and shapes. Roman Polanski once said that he wants to depict the impossible with extreme realism. I find this sentence conclusive, and he meets about what interests me when painting," explains the artist.
Heise suggests in her paintings a staged reality, an illusory reality, by looking for exactly those points of contact, where the real template and the ideas or memories of this overlap.