BETWEEN THEIR EYES
ARTICLE & INTERVIEW series:
A journey beyond the canvas, weaving human and collaborative stories.

KARLOTTA SUSANNA PÖCHKO
Between the skin
15.07.2025 - 25.08.2025

Following the exhibition ‘Between the Skin’, KÜSSE Berlin delves deeper into the delicate universe of Karlotta Susanna Pöschko’s work, where vulnerability and softness surface through every brushstroke. With the Between Their Eyes series, KÜSSE Berlin extends the experience beyond the physical space of the gallery. Each article offers an intimate exploration of the portraits, revealing the shared moments, emotions, and connection between artist and sitter. Here, the models are no longer silent subjects; their voices weave into the narrative, opening new viewpoints and expanding the exhibition space through text that complements the aesthetic experience. Readers discover how relationships and collaboration form an interconnected artistic world. This article series will be presented in September as a Meta-Exhibition (mix of moodboard and mind map), extends ‘Between the Skin’ beyond a non-conventional and physical frame option as well.

AUTHORS
Chloé Devaux Courvoisier
Shih-Hsuan Lin
MaviSu Kasapoglu

BETWEEN THEIR EYES

  • Karlotta Susanna Pöschko: Being in/to the world

    Born in Fürth (Germany) in 2001, Karlotta Susanna Pöschko is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. Her artwork, mostly portraits, is driven by a deep connection to the silent dialogue between artist and model. These paintings, beyond depicting identities, let slip a vibration that elaborates her perception of presence into the world with a tender and soft approach. The materiality of textiles and fabrics plays a vital role in her practice. Gauze, steel, layered pigments: these are not embellishments, but surfaces that think, breathe, remember. In Pöschko’s hands, textile becomes a second body, a membrane between the figure and its image, both veiling and revealing. This sensitivity to material, as well as the insistence on the physicality of painting, resonates deeply with the heritage of the Leipzig School.



    Published on 27.08.2025.
    Written by Chloé Devaux Courvoisier.

  • Lison Tureau Pezery: Je(u), A Playground for Emotions

    Paris-based artist Lison Tureau Pezery works across painting, illustration, printmaking, textiles, installation, and reading performance. For her, material experimentation functions less as a technical exercise but as a form of thinking-through-making to explore ideas. Her practice often begins with personal experiences and relationships, yet always opens out toward the viewer. Her figures, distinguished by their expressive eyes and reminiscent of a cartoon or graphic novel, inhabit the entire exhibition space, creating an immersive dimension. Varying in scale, these characters form a playful terrain that reshapes our relationship to the work. It invites reflection on the modes of reception and the experiential dimension of the work, fostering contemplation of fear, curiosity, and memory, ultimately questioning how emotion and affects are negotiated within the structures of adulthood.

    Published on 3.09.2025
    Written by Shih-Hsuan Lin.

Karlotta Susanna Pöschko: Being in/to the world

Born in Fürth (Germany) in 2001, Karlotta Susanna Pöschko is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. Her artwork, mostly portraits, is driven by a deep connection to the silent dialogue between artist and model. These paintings, beyond depicting identities, let slip a vibration that elaborates her perception of presence into the world with a tender and soft approach. 

The materiality of textiles and fabrics plays a vital role in her practice. Gauze, steel, layered pigments: these are not embellishments, but surfaces that think, breathe, remember. In Pöschko’s hands, textile becomes a second body, a membrane between the figure and its image, both veiling and revealing. This sensitivity to material, as well as the insistence on the physicality of painting, resonates deeply with the heritage of the Leipzig School.

PAINTING AS A TENSION BETWEEN SEEING AND BEING SEEN 

Her solo exhibition Between the Skin, presented by KÜSSE Berlin, focuses precisely on subtle dynamics, about those tensions that animate her portraits. In parallel, this article is part of the series “Between Their Eyes”, which delves into the personal narratives that unfold in her portraits, offering an intimate look into Pöschko’s creative vision. This first text shows the way she approaches the human figure. Along this process, it becomes more than an object on the canvas to be seen, but an invitation for a relationship. No matter where her exploration leads, she always returns to the figure. The human presence is, for her, an anchor point, always drawn back to. If KÜSSE Berlin provides the space to exhibit her paintings, it is the portrait that exposes itself. Not by displaying an image, but by unveiling a delicate interplay between seeing and being seen. Henceforth, gazing itself becomes a form of exhibition.   

In Pöschko’s work, the choice of a model is not driven by aesthetics: it is about an immediate resonance - almost instinctive. She is attracted to the energy emanated by someone. It could be in shaping and inscribing themselves in space, their gestures, their facial expressions, and how they reveal themselves to the world. Through her painting, Karlotta is exploring and representing the role of the gaze, always in a careful way. Accordingly, this experience of looking is fundamental to her vision: the figure is engaging in a sort of silent dialogue, above all, a form of exchange. However, for Karlotta, painting is dictated by uncertainty: she never knows what is coming next. Capturing the person always goes through an intense exchange, always confusing, even frightening. Portraiture carries tension, becomes a suspended moment where control slips away, and the act of looking imposes its authority. Then, each portrait becomes a confrontation. Bodies, as well as the gaze, are exhibited. The relationship with the model is de facto marked by this moment of change, where the person in front ceases to be to becomes an autonomous pictorial form, where the portrait ends up replacing the memory, the form of the person. This phenomenon of alienation takes place as much in portraits of her close, strangers, as in self-portraits.

Painting her mother becomes a real turning point, revealing how the painter’s gaze can unsettle the deepest bonds. Turning affection into observation, and closeness into a delicate tension, a fragile exposure, a sensitive vulnerability. Their relationship, as well as their role, was subtly shaken by this experience.

Regarding the autoportraits, this act of looking at herself becomes both an affirmation and an alienation. Karlotta describes moments of “losing herself in the mirror”, when the familiarity of her reflection starts to dissolve, and the boundaries between her and the outer world begin to fade. This makes her acknowledge that she exists, as a form and as a body. It is no longer seeing, but being inside.

THE REALISTIC FIGURE AS A SPACE FOR/OF CONNECTION

But to paint, for Pöschko, is mostly to connect. 

At the heart of her practice is the exploration of the in-between: between self and others, between visibility and invisibility, between intimacy and estrangement. Karlotta pays close attention to unique details of each individual, like a mirror of her reality, capturing specific elements that define them. These particularities then become subtle, indirect signs, illustrating Karlotta’s interpretation of their identity. Painting is about creating a space of relationship, where both the artist, the model, and even the viewer can meet in a shared vulnerability and exposure. The portraits are not objects to be looked at, but spaces to be inhabited. In these moments, the boundary lines between self and world blur. The figure on the canvas begins to become a site of connection and the presence of a common experience. The facial expression of the models is not a lack of emotion, but a path resulting from hours of work that leads to a unique access to their interiority. Through this slow, careful process of painting, Karlotta reveals this state of neutrality on the canvas, which allows a more complex truth to emerge: one that transcends.

Her portraiture’s vision is deeply aligned with phenomenological perspectives, where the body and the gaze are not isolated but always in relation to the surrounding world. For Karlotta, the portrait is a way to access the world, others, and to navigate between interiority and exteriority. The figure, her own and her model’s, is a call to openness and serves as a conduit through which relational existence is made visible. As her work enters public space through exhibitions such Between the Skin, another layer of tension emerges: a dialogue with viewers, who bring their gaze, their own interpretations and backgrounds into the fragile worlds she constructs. The portrait, in this sense, becomes a mirror not just for Karlotta and her models, but for anyone who looks at them long enough.

Lison Tureau Pezery:
Je(u), A Playground for Emotions

In Karlotta Susanna Pöschko's solo exhibition, Between the Skin, a series of portrait paintings is displayed. The sitters in these portraits include not only Karlotta’s friends and acquaintances but also strangers, as well as fellow artists who occupy the dual position of colleagues and friends. What distinct aesthetic sensations arise when shifting from being the artist to becoming the subject under observation? In the second part of the Between Their Eyes series, we interviewed Lison, Amelie, and Inga, three artists as Karlotta's models. We explored their creative journeys and sources of inspiration, while also understanding the roles and experiences when participating in another's artistic creation.

Paris-based artist Lison Tureau Pezery works across painting, illustration, printmaking, textiles, installation, and reading performance. For her, material experimentation functions less as a technical exercise but as a form of thinking-through-making to explore ideas.

Her practice often begins with personal experiences and relationships, yet always opens out toward the viewer. In her diploma exhibition, Muer sous mon Manteau (2025) at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, she presented wooden figures with strikingly large eyes, placed throughout the space as if playing hide-and-seek with the audience. She describes the project with the French pun Je(u), meaning both “I” and “play”, a way of framing her exhibitions as open worlds where viewers are invited to step inside and discover their own stories. Her figures, distinguished by their expressive eyes and reminiscent of a cartoon or graphic novel, inhabit the entire exhibition space, creating an immersive dimension. Varying in scale, these characters form a playful terrain that reshapes our relationship to the work. The scenography encourages movement and wandering among the pieces, prompting a reconsideration of proximity and distance in the encounter with art. In doing so, it invites reflection on the modes of reception and the experiential dimension of the work, fostering contemplation of fear, curiosity, and memory, ultimately questioning how emotion and affects are negotiated within the structures of adulthood.

During Lison’s ERASMUS program in Klasse Drechsel at Hochschule für Grafik une Buchkunst Leipzig, she met Karlotta in their painting class. She recalled that when Karlotta invited her to be the model, she was truly delighted and touched. Under Karlotta's brush, Lison sits quietly reading a book. The interesting thing is that reading has had a significant influence on both Lison's artistic creation and personal growth; she recites passages at her exhibitions and incorporates concepts from her favourite books into her work. Although Karlotta was unaware of Lison’s interest in literature, she requested her to adopt a reading pose. Tureau believes Karlotta captured a facet of her that she habitually keeps hidden. Just as Karlotta believes that painting portraits is a comfortable way for her to build connections, Lison also feels that during the process of Karlotta painting her portrait, she genuinely sensed their bond growing stronger. This feeling is truly precious to her.

INTERVIEW
KÜSSE Berlin
In Lison (2024) by Karlotta Susanna Pöschko, included in the Between the Skin’s work selection, you are the only one who looks away, while in your book. In parallel, your characters always face the audience with wide eyes. What role does the gaze play for you across these two different contexts?

Lison Tureau Pezery:
Karlotta chose the pose for me, and we talked a little about it. For her, the relationship in the portrait was not about direct eye contact, about looking at one another. Also, since we were classmates but not very close, it felt more like seeing each other without really exchanging. What’s interesting is that, although I often say eyes are what bring my characters to life, in her portrait, you don’t actually see much of my eyes. And yet she still managed to capture something very true about me. When I look at it, I realize she caught something I was perhaps trying to hide, something not easy for me to see in myself. It is a portrait, but in a way that reveals a deeper part of me.

KÜSSE Berlin
When you describe your work as from a personal experience that becomes collective, how do you conceptualize the notion of ‘collective’ in your practice?

Lison Tureau Pezery:
My work is always about different relationships and how they evolve, how you grow up through them. How you grow not only by yourself but also with other people. At first, it is very much about my own experience. But when I start working on the scenography and consider how to make it in space, that’s the moment when I think about creating a collective experience. (...) As I go through things in my own life, I’ve realized that at one point, it's things that we are all going through. So I try to position the public in a context where they can participate, play, engage, or find a place within it. I also aim for viewers to recognize aspects of their own lives or experiences within the work.

KÜSSE Berlin
Your ‘wordplay’ Je(u), ‘I’ and ‘play’ in French highlight the playful dimension of your practice and your display universe. Would you say that you imagine your exhibition as a kind of playground, where visitors can join your experience and also discover their own? Do you design your exhibition as an interactive or participatory environment?

Lison Tureau Pezery:
That was the point. I also think a lot about how not to be too rough for people who see my work. Sometimes, I feel that certain subjects, or the experience we go through, can be quite heavy. For me, games are a way to step aside, to create a space where people can position themselves inside. There are many possibilities to take it, either in a very emotional way or more lightly.

Although I still work a lot on my own, I’m also trying to include others in my creation, even though it wasn’t easy for me at first. Little by little, I try more and more, just to see what works. I’ve also experimented with different approaches, such as reading texts. In the exhibition, the first part was reading a simple text, which created a link with the show and also opened a new perspective on how people perceive and relate to it.

KÜSSE Berlin
In your exhibition “Muer sous mon Manteau” (2025), your installations evoke the tension and ambiguity between childhood and adulthood. How do you explore those boundaries? And is there a special meaning behind the big eyes your characters always display?

Lison Tureau Pezery
The theme of childhood became more present this year, because I’m leaving school, and I feel like I’ve had a life to follow since I was really small. I keep asking myself why we always separate childhood and adulthood. My work is also about certain aspects of childhood, such as curiosity or spontaneity. I’m searching for what I want to take from adulthood, or from being an adult. I’ve realized that maybe one part of becoming an adult is no longer expecting other people to fix your fears or provide solutions; you become the owner of your own fear. In this sense, all of my work was about searching for my own way of entering adulthood.

The big eyes came from a form I had learned when I was younger, and I rediscovered it at the beginning of the year. I thought it would be interesting to work with it again. For me, in the end, the eyes are what make characters alive. Without the expression in the eyes, there is nothing, because everything goes through them. That’s why the characters have these big eyes. I think they are also trying to hold on to people’s gaze, to keep the viewer’s look.

KÜSSE Berlin
Do you try to provide interpretive keys to guide your audience through your exhibitions, or do you prefer to leave the reception open?

Lison Tureau Pezery:
I write down all my thought processes, and choose to read some passages aloud. It’s not about explaining the process step by step, but more about sharing sentences that lie somewhere between poetry and storytelling. In this way, I don’t give direct answers, but instead I offer suggestions.

For example, in the exhibition ‘Muer sous mon Manteau’ I used chalk, the same kind children use to draw on playgrounds, to write sentences on the floor, especially the ones about fear. For me, it wasn’t about providing answers, but about opening things up, creating space for more questions rather than closing them.