Kerstin Roolfs doesn’t make work that fades into the background. Her paintings are bold in scale and unapologetic in content. Working primarily in oil on canvas, she leans into heavy subjects—myth, gender, politics, physical difference, and the weight of history. Her pieces aren’t meant to decorate. They’re meant to start conversations. To provoke. To hold the viewer in place and not let go.
Originally from Germany, Roolfs studied fine art in Berlin before crossing the Atlantic in 1994. She landed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, back when it was still a rough-edged hub of artists and raw possibility. In 2016, she relocated to the Bronx, where she continues to create. Her work has shown in galleries and group shows throughout the U.S., Canada, Russia, and Europe. Museum exhibitions in Germany have added another layer to her international reach. She is currently represented by Twelvechairs Gallery (https://twelvechairsgallery.com/).
One series that marks a major milestone in her practice is Global Beings. The first painting, Global Beings 1#6, stands nearly eight feet wide—a massive canvas filled with movement, ambiguity, and layered references. The idea for the series began at Berlin’s Charité medical museum, where she encountered preserved remains of babies born with deformities, once labeled “children of wonder.” Instead of treating them as objects of pity, Roolfs took the long view—connecting their existence to ancient beliefs, particularly Greek mythology’s interpretations of difference and duality.
She also pulled in philosophy, referencing Plato’s Symposium. In Aristophanes’ monologue, humans are described as originally androgynous beings, split apart by the gods, doomed to spend their lives searching for their other halves. That story stuck with her. The beings in her paintings aren’t static—they bend, tumble, and hover between gender identities. Snippets of philosophical text appear directly on the canvas. The figures aren’t just forms—they seem to be interacting with the language, trying to decode it, trying to speak back.
In contrast, Faces 2017 comes from a completely different place. There’s no plan behind it. Roolfs used automatic drawing—an approach rooted in Surrealism, where the artist’s hand moves without forethought. Out of that process came a crowd of simplified, faceless heads. They’re androgynous, silent, and oddly familiar. She’s seen them before in her own work, stretching back to her first years in New York. They surface when she stops trying to direct them. They’re not characters. They’re more like signals—her own visual shorthand that continues to reappear when the conscious mind steps aside.
Women 2000 brings structure back into the process. This painting closes a long arc in Roolfs’ “Sister” series, which she began in the late 1990s. It started as a collage. Then came an ink drawing. Then the final oil painting, which measures 70 by 60 inches. The planning shows. This piece is constructed, balanced, considered. But it’s not cold. Like much of her work, it carries a sense of personal memory and shared experience—this time focused on womanhood and its many layers.
Across all of these works, the throughline isn’t style—it’s intent. Roolfs doesn’t use painting to illustrate. She uses it to investigate. Her figures often float between categories. They don’t settle. They question. She seems less interested in answers and more committed to the asking. What does it mean to carry a body that doesn’t match expectations? What happens when myth and reality blur? How do we interpret symbols that refuse to be pinned down?
Her practice shifts—from loose improvisation to precise composition—but the drive stays the same. She’s always reaching toward something more complicated, more tangled, and more real.
From her Bronx studio, she builds work that pulls from centuries-old texts, medical museums, and her own subconscious. The paintings may come from silence, but they don’t stay silent. They ask the viewer to stop scrolling, to stop talking, and just stand there. To look. To think. Maybe even to feel uncomfortable.
Kerstin Roolfs doesn’t flinch. Her art doesn’t either.
