über / about ORANNA
Kontakt, Neuigkeiten / contact, news
die Bilder / paintings
Impressum / impressum

After her German A-levels Oranna did different jobs and studies, for instance on drawing and nude drawing at the „Fachhochschule für Design, Dortmund” (Prof. Birkner).
At that time she also worked on the design of clothes.
In 1993, Oranna has started to paint with oil and acrylic colours on canvas and wood, and has continued her studies while working for the management of a sales company in Dortmund.

Oranna’s specific style of painting in a larger dimension depicting impressions of landscapes, portraits and still lives communicates its own very individual tension, triggered by the calm distance, and a formal cool strength on one hand and the intense colouring on the other hand while at the same time also almost having the effect of an abstract representation and, furthermore, illustrating a realistic perspective which is of a three-dimensional quality. „Frozen moments“, vocalized a friend, who is an actor.
Oranna Schönhagen describes her intention and way of working as follows: ”My intention is to fix impressions that I experienced, which means moving moments and pictures, and to ´embody´ them in form of a painting. Sometimes impressions I gathered on journeys, sometimes impressions of the daily life are transformed into the very basis of my paintings. I work with sketches, photos, and sometimes other material to complete my work in the studio. Very rarely I paint open-air or with living models”.
Her paintings are partly reminiscent of the kind of painting of the American painter Edward Hopper (his paintings always served as a stimulus and an inspiration for her), of the painter Norbert Tadeusz (Dortmund/Düsseldorf) and of the so-called “Neue Sachlichkeit“ dating back to the twenties of the last century.

"Gondel", Schenkung der Malerin an die ARTOTHEK, Dortmund