The small canvases by Justine Otto that we have the privilege of offering as part of the Edition Gerd Hatje are semi-grotesque, semi-facetious, constructed portraits of fictitious cowboys. Her choice of the old-fashioned, German names Hans-Werner, Hans-Herbert, and Hans-Otto alludes to the great contradiction between the myth of the American hero and the breakdown of masculine identity. This occurs in the interplay between the layers of paint and the process of obliteration typical of Otto’s work, in which faces are composed with a collage-like vocabulary made up of recognizable paint flecks, spills, dabs, drops, and twisting, curving brushstrokes.
