Bertram Hasenauer (b.1970 in Saalfelden, Austria) studied from 1992 to 1997 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at the University of the Arts in Berlin and from 1997 to 1998 at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. He lives and works in Berlin. Hasenauer's works mainly deal with portraits, landscapes and everyday objects. His characteristic monochrome color palette is characterized by black, white and shades of grey, but also intense red, blue and yellow. The strong contrast of colors gives his works a smooth surface that makes his painting appear abstract, although figurative. Images from magazines and the internet serve as templates for his characters. The figures in his works are in a timeless space and seem introspective. They often disappear into the background or half dissolve into it. Hasenauer's depictions seem familiar and strange at the same time, and it is precisely this contradiction that makes his works so appealing.

Solo Exhibitions include (Upcoming) Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2026); Nature of Time, Galerie Thomas Fuchs, Stuttgart, Germany (2026); Bertram Hasenauer, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL (2025); Salon Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL (2025); Cheek by Jowl, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2024); One in Other, Amira Iravanized Gallery Anja Knees, Koln, Germany (2024); Silver Sand, Galerie Sophia Vonier, Salzburg, Austria (2024); Sense of Self, CHOI&CHOI Gallery, Seoul, Korea (2024); Eight Minutes, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2023); Kunsthalle Memmingen, Germany (2023); Shared Memory, Thomas Fox Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany (2023); Fine Delay, Galerie Anja Knoess, Cologne, Germany (2022); Tandem Distiller, Galerie Anja Knoess, Cologne, Germany (2021).
 
Selected Group Exhibitions include 30. ROHJUNSTBAU, Schloss Altdöbern, Brandenburg, Germany (2025); '...und lässt sein blaues Band', Galerie Anja Knoess, Köln, Germany (2025); Pink Beauty, Basinger Fabrik, München, Germany (2025); Mirror Mirror, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2024); Himmel and Erde, Galerie Thomas Fuchs, Stuttgart, Germany (2024); HUMAN, CHOI&CHOI Gallery, Seoul (2023); Darkness is called darkness, Ebensperger, Vienna, Austria (2023); Modebilder-Kunstkleider Fotografie, Malerei, Mode, Berlinische Galerie, 1900 bis heute, Berlin, Germany (2023); Freedom and Independence, Epensperger, Vienna, Austria (2023); Tomorrow is tomorrow is tomorrow, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2023); Kunst. Leben, Leidenschaft, Museum Angerlehner, Wels, Austria (2022); Fashion images/Art clothing, Photography, painting and fashion 1900 till now, Berlin, Germany (2022); 'Wilde Kindheit', Kunstmuseum Lentos, Linz, Austria (2021) .

Faces fade into and out of focus, dissolving into white light and velvety shadows. Elsewhere, mysterious landscapes seem to rise up out of deep shades of red and blue. In Trickster, Bertram Hasenauer’s solo exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery Berlin, images hover between recognition and uncertainty, inviting into a world of flickering forms and perceptual play.

Across mythology, the trickster appears in many guises: a character who moves across boundaries, eluding social and cultural expectations. There is an element of play, but also deception. When we encounter a trickster, we know to be wary: things may not be as they seem. For Hasenauer, this quality extends beyond the subjects he depicts to the act of image-making itself. Some of his figures are named after famous tricksters, such as Loki, the shapeshifting god of mischief from Norse mythology, or Ananse, a figure in West African folklore who most commonly takes the form of a spider. Others are named after characters that Hasenauer himself has invented. Yet rather than depicting specific individuals, he creates what he calls an ‘idea of a figure’.

Each portrait is created through a slow and exacting process, involving the application of very thin layers of pigment on a white-primed canvas or the precise drawing of a silhouette in graphite on a black surface.  Working with as few lines as possible, Hasenauer is interested in the point at which perception ends and imagination begins. The paintings give us just enough information to recognise a face or body, but leave enough unresolved for our minds to complete the image.

In Ananse, for example, the figure is a woman rather than a spider. Her face appears almost unfinished, with a portion seemingly ‘missing’, erased perhaps or simply folded out of sight. Yet we instinctively fill in the absent detail, completing the image in our minds. In this way, the painting becomes a kind of collaboration between artist and viewer: what we see is partly what is there and partly what we imagine. Like the trickster itself, the image resists being pinned down.