Theusner takes stock of the age we live in as well as the mood in society. She creates images of the present, sometimes whimsical and seemingly hallucinatory. In the process, she resorts to the aesthetic of Instagram and the culture of selfies. She describes things she has seen in reality, but never does so realistically. In her pieces we find images of the present but likewise visions of the future, and insights into everything that is possible. The seemingly effusive wealth of subject matter arises from the tension between travel and retreat: She records quite bizarre scenes from big cities with virtuosity and a lightness of touch. The images include exotic couples, street buskers, artists, or portraits of young people who seem to have lost their bearings. Ulrike Theusner sucks up everything that she encounters visually and atmospherically and reproduces it with her own, always somehow slightly edgy and yet precise style of drawing.

The exhibition Grelle Gegenwart (Glaring Present) brings together almost 170 works by Ulrike Theusner in Kunsthalle Rostock and is the first institutional solo show of the works of the artist, who was born in 1982 in Frankfurt/Oder.