Text by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Vossenkuhl

It was Plato, no less, who said there are images that elude thought – they have to be seen.
Ulla M. Scholl's painted faces are such images. Their diversity cannot be expressed and described in words. They are heads, faces, masks, portraits which move us to reflect, not only because of their sheer variety and range of colours. What especially astounds us is that we cannot imagine what they show us before we have seen it. Joy, fear, worry, grief, exuberance – all these emotions and feelings are visible in the variety of hues.

The fact that we cannot conceive, imagine, verbalise but only see what Ulla M. Scholl makes visible, throws an interesting light on our human powers of comprehension. It is by no means the case that everything that matters in human life can be verbalised. Certain things in the first instance are seen, and what Ulla M. Scholl shows us comes with the message that we can only have a real impression of another person when we have seen him or her. We need to have seen that other person, otherwise we cannot know who he is, where he comes from, where he belongs, what moves him and what he is feeling. That is the message communicated by Ulla M. Scholl's paintings. And this message is irrefutably important.