21/10/2026 - 17/01/2027

Conny Maier Searching for Paradise

About the exhibition

By showcasing Conny Maier the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München is presenting a rarity on the international art scene – an artist who is both authentic and unconventional at the same time. Her paintings and drawings captivate viewers with their distinctive artistic signature style.

At first sight, you have the impression that Conny Maier is channeling the imagery of early Expressionism, especially Munich’s Blauer Reiter movement, while her color palette can take on the subtle hues of the Old Masters. This beautiful illusion is disrupted by aesthetic outbursts that are closest to Art Brut, which always lend her motifs a wild and archaic quality. Her enigmatic scenes are determined by archetypes that explore the elementary forms of human interaction. They tell of grand emotions like Love, Fear, and Fury – the predominant themes in the arts since Antiquity.

Conny Maier, Hitze (nach Waldbrand von Johann Christian Dahl), 2025, Öl, Pigmente und Ölstift auf Leinwand, 30 x 24 cm, Courtesy the artist, Société, Berlin and Hauser & Wirth, Foto: Trevor Good

Conny Maier, Wildrosen, 2026, Öl, Pigmente und Ölstift auf Leinwand, 30 x 24 cm, Courtesy the artist, Société, Berlin and Hauser & Wirth, Foto: Trevor Good

Conny Maier will transform the Munich exhibition spaces into an era-spanning global landscape as well as an enchanted monastic garden. These spaces could be regarded as early paradises were it not for the unsettling idea they might evolve into an apocalypse. Despite the familiarity of the subject, the images also suggest a sub-text beneath which chasms open up. The topics of the unknown and the uncanny resonate in every work. However, while nature has thus far served merely as a supporting element in her figurative paintings, Maier places it squarely at the center of her focus in her Munich exhibition project.

Already in fall of 2024 Conny Maier conducted intensive field studies in Brandenburg’s natural environment with a florist friend in her circle. She later assessed the results of her work in her Portugal studio using these to sketch out possible thematic groups for her project using storyboards. In the Study Room of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung she then expanded her vocabulary from this field research to include classical art-historical motifs. At the focus here were unusual plant depictions throughout art history which were paraphrased and incorporated into her visual language.

.

What is new here is that, against the backdrop of this research, Conny Maier infuses her drawing and painting studies with allegory and mythology, evoking the enigmatic motifs of medieval tapestries or festive Baroque interiors. Already in these historic prototypes the meaning-imbued plant world conveyed joyful but also unpleasant messages, provided you knew how to read the symbols and signs. Meanwhile, in the Rotunda, the artist will create a salon adorned with blue-and-white tiles, entirely in the style of Baroque festive culture, where visitors can linger and lose themselves in fairy-tale-like imagery, as if in a garden maze.

Attending the exhibition, you can experience hands on how Conny Maier spreads global landscapes within her drawings, paintings, and tile murals that put any floral still-life in the shade while allowing visitors to become butterfly-catchers, botanists, and conservationists.

Michael Hering
Director
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München