At first glance, the drawings and paintings of Larissa Fassler, a Canadian artist living and working in Berlin, look like scientific studies, and, in fact, they are the result of detailed analyses of the movements and micro-events that take place in high-traffic areas of large cities. Yet when one looks more closely at the details, an entirely subjective poetry begins to emerge. No doubt because Fassler’s observations and surveys have no aim or because movement and life have been frozen in graphic representations, in contemplating them we experience the melancholy inherent to considering vanitas. This is particularly true for the preparatory drawings done in ink or pencil on paper, in which the movement is rendered almost perceptible by the fragility of the line.
