Anja Pauseback

Warm fantasy on ice
Icy – the common definition of our increasingly anti-social society. Yet, we carry on. Love still exists, both real love and the faceless kind (a society laden with sexual implications).
The banana (upper left) is, like all ripe tropical fruit, part of the symbolism of luxury, of plenty, of paradise, of the sensual and of the erotic. Starting from its shape, it represents the erotic association with the male sexual organ (phallus) and it is shown again, in exaggerated size, in the middle of the painting, at the beginning of an erection in front of a woman, who in the foreground, wearing nothing but panties or a heart.
The red above could be her nail with bright polish but it could also be another stimulating fruit – the chili pepper, which represents the inner fire that, along with its pointy shape, is also able to ward off the “evil eye”.
Live your dream!
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini,




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Columbine shows herself
Columbine is a person from the lower social class (stratum). In the Commedia dell'Arte she usually plays the role of the servant or cook. She is free of the stilted manners of the upper class and is a lively, self-confident character who speaks her mind. She is mischievous, quick-witted and cunning. When Columbine comes on stage, the joy of living comes back into play, along with the desire to pay closer attention to one's own life. Perhaps this indicates that the time has come for women to make their female intuition a reality. It is a force against the melancholy of our times, arising when the ordinary chaos of everyday life begins to strangle us.
(nominate for PALM-ART-AWARD 2012)
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Living beings in space and time
Here we see the theme of layers in various dimensions: above and below, sky and earth, real and surreal, eternity and transience. The painting is divided into two parts. The fire red along with the orange and yellow symbolize the heat of protection in the external skies (also in the figurative sense of feeling like you're in “seventh heaven”).
Here small angels await their mission. Meanwhile, a large angel, a guardian, unites earth/nature – here the dark and brown hues – with the sky, watching over Rome, its cats, its pigeons and its dogs, even though they fill the city with excrement. (In ancient Rome it was people who used sewer canals directly as toilets or who urinated in the corners of houses because common plebeians could not afford a latrine). The guardian angel watches over every creature and over all of us as we try to survive the chaos of Rome.
Still today, Rome (and all of Italy) is not in the best shape in terms of clea


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Dance of impermanence
Pisa and its Leaning Tower are the symbol of the international programme for the assessment of pupils – and, not only as concerns results in Italy, of a cultural decline and loss of learning. Until the tower was reopened in 2001, its future was uncertain and there seemed to be no end to its plant-like fugacity.
The donkey (front right) with its rider can be seen as a metaphor for the stupidity and sameness relayed by the mass media. Its increasing lack of intelligence, its mediocrity, its contentedness with simple answers. There is still hope in the donkey's stubbornness. The donkey symbolizes, moreover, the male sexual libido, which can be fertile but also destructive; it symbolizes might, debauchery and lust.
A flamenco dancer (on the left) with her puffed sleeves and flounced dress turns with the rhythms that accompanied the Spanish in their struggles for independence. Flamenco, the unconventional or anti-conventional dance as a call to


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Immersing yourself in life
Having grown in the warm nest, at a certain point little birds head out into the world, ready to fly and leave their earlier protective shell and then the nest itself. They become even smaller because they realize that, outside of the family's attention, in the big world or in the city of Rome, they are just individuals among many. The world out there is colder than home. We wish to break out of the confines of home to discover new things, to seize opportunities and to affirm ourselves. This is the cycle. We head out to find ourselves and then to build our own nest.
Here the layers are divided inside and out. The extended white space suggests, moreover, that we have every option available when we are ready to take flight. We're at the beginning, like a blank sheet of paper. A light breeze is blowing (the light blue) but it lets us be free to decide which path to take. The warmth (orange) of home gives us strength on our way.
(text: Katrin


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Unperturbed in the tempest of time
A woman with a dress blown about in a tempest. The storm in the signification of sensory impressions that literally penetrate us. Truths, information, but also the most extreme weather conditions. The woman as a complex and flexible being. The woman as mother nature, as donor, as the one who conceives life. Below her flapping dress there lies a tree, living beings, a man, a city.
Without a doubt, wisdom is also feminine. It is intercultural and timeless, universal and human, real and ideal. It is profound understanding of the game of cause and effect in nature, of life and of society. It is knowledge and intuition, reason and emotion, maturity and childishness, wisdom and folly, and it requires an extraordinary ethical-moral outlook, intellectual flexibility and exceptional independence.
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Shadows of the past
Imagine how old Romans lived and how they influenced the progress of the world: wars for more than fourteen centuries, fires, demolitions and new beginnings. This painting unites all these facets of history. History lives in Rome and under Rome. It flows from ancient times to our times. Cruelty, bloodshed and fire are also part of this city. Like an angel, a woman spreads her protective hands over the remains of an inferno and she seems to remove a few pieces of the smouldering wood.
Consciousness of the past and recognition of its painful aspects, too. All of this belongs to us and to a city, and it bequeaths us dignity in our lives in the present.
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Warm fantasy on ice
Icy – the common definition of our increasingly anti-social society. Yet, we carry on. Love still exists, both real love and the faceless kind (a society laden with sexual implications).
The banana (upper left) is, like all ripe tropical fruit, part of the symbolism of luxury, of plenty, of paradise, of the sensual and of the erotic. Starting from its shape, it represents the erotic association with the male sexual organ (phallus) and it is shown again, in exaggerated size, in the middle of the painting, at the beginning of an erection in front of a woman, who in the foreground, wearing nothing but panties or a heart.
The red above could be her nail with bright polish but it could also be another stimulating fruit – the chili pepper, which represents the inner fire that, along with its pointy shape, is also able to ward off the “evil eye”.
Live your dream!
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini,




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The charm of female seduction
Women with red hair have always had great powers of attraction over men. In ancient Rome there were red wigs because Roman brunettes feared they might lose their men to the redheaded barbarian women.
Rome is a redheaded woman with a mysterious personality that is difficult to understand at times. The painting, too, is mysterious. How many women do you see? The woman is many women. Her warmth, body and feminine attributes stoke the flame of passion. Is there any man who doesn't dream, at least once, to rest between soft yet firm breasts? The layering in this painting has tormenting contours and so the single figure, probably male (in the upper right-hand corner), seems somewhat tortured by all that femininity.
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Cold sensation
Blue as a symbol of the cold. Brown and yellow as warm contrasts. Do we see a man sitting in the cold? Facing death? His own death or the painful loss of love, or his own wasted life? Thoughts swirl in our minds. We have great potential energy. When do we use it? Behind us there is smoke. Is it smoke from the fire of passion that goes out slowly? Or is it a strong wind that brings oxygen to make it blaze again and shore off the threat of death, allowing us to live every minute to the fullest?
Or is the man thinking about killing the pigs we see in the foreground? The air is cold, as would be his act of killing. Do humans have the right to kill animals? Do people have the right to kill animals for their OWN survival? The hope of an answer is suggested by the yellow belt, which is warm around the heart. With such cold experiences, will we be able to stay sunny?
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpa


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The joy of life
Who or what gives us pleasure can be, in any phase or situation in life, someone or something different. Experiencing a pleasant sensation is surely positive and for this reason it is portrayed here in light colours that convey joy. The tension between the cold (blue and grey) and the warm (pink, orange and yellow) tells us that we don't all feel joy in the presence of the same person or thing. Pleasure is individual.
Perhaps you see a pair of lovers, perhaps many people embracing, perhaps mothers hovering over their children, or perhaps children jumping, carefree, in water? Or do you see the black cherry and smurf-blue gelato from the Giolitti ice-cream parlour in Via degli Uffici del Vicario 40? Something for the happy people who have learned how to enjoy life.
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Against any resistance
A vigorous and dynamic image. Resisting means fighting and the daily struggle to stop one's id from bending (distorting in the painting). It is a struggle Anja is familiar with, since she faced it for years and won. We have to fight, even for the little things in daily life, such as understanding our utility bills, telling the difference between the important and the petty, and stopping ourselves from being dazed by a system that tries to dumb down everyone and everything, all the while trying to understand who we are. Indeed, this can make us a little aggressive since this resistance robs us of strength that we would rather invest in more creative pursuits. In all these phases (layers) of life, we face forms of resistance. When will we understand how to ignore them simply, or rather to get ourselves out of them, not to break down and not to let go but rather to look towards the light (on the right) and really recognize ourselves?
(text: Katrin Walte

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Spring in Rome
When spring bursts forth in Rome, the city is a mixture of colours and scents, men and women bringing the city to life with their more colourful, lighter clothes stirred by the breeze. Flowers bloom and their fresh scents herald the annual rebirth of nature in Rome, readily seen in the city's many parks. Warm colours prevail because life is colour... is life... is colour... is life...
The form of the motif recalls the shape of the Roman capital district on the map of Italy. Here we feel the absolute synthesis that is the city within its boundaries, which are nonetheless blurred, since Rome as a seat of government and as a base for many institutions spreads its influence over a much broader area.
At times it is hard to believe this monumental city can be capable of delicacy but those who are more sensitive can see precisely these emotions in springtime Rome.
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immor

Towards spring
The approaching rebirth promised by spring is revealed in delicate colours. Light peaks out between the city's buildings from the blue sky that draws the eyes up from the ancient and deeply-grooved cobblestone streets of Rome. Here the eyes take in all directions: the grooved ground, the Mediterranean colours of the building walls and the blue skies above Rome. This light has entranced many, as it has Anja Pauseback. Here the theme of layering is interpreted as overlapping views in different directions.
Some may see the bark of an ancient tree, with its grooves and scars, and the knots where, over the years, branches have fallen off. Yet Rome, the tree – the Eternal City – continues to be.
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Columbine shows herself
Columbine is a person from the lower social class (stratum). In the Commedia dell'Arte she usually plays the role of the servant or cook. She is free of the stilted manners of the upper class and is a lively, self-confident character who speaks her mind. She is mischievous, quick-witted and cunning. When Columbine comes on stage, the joy of living comes back into play, along with the desire to pay closer attention to one's own life. Perhaps this indicates that the time has come for women to make their female intuition a reality. It is a force against the melancholy of our times, arising when the ordinary chaos of everyday life begins to strangle us.
(nominate for PALM-ART-AWARD 2012)
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)

Turmoil in the underlayer
People. Many people. Heads and torsos can be seen. Everything is bubbling over in Rome, and in society. Life pulses. Inside, a fire is burning. Turmoil, a revolution, opposition to everything that is unjust and disloyal. The idea attracts more and more and, if you squint a little, you can see a horse in the foreground. A workhorse. Is this the strength that pulls us out of thoughts in turmoil, out of our messes, both private and social?
(text: Katrin Walter simply.walter@yahoo.com; translation: Anna Ambrosini, Roma, immortalpalindrome@yahoo.it)