Longing is a quiet yet persistent state. It is not necessarily directed toward a specific goal; rather, it describes an inner desire—for lightness, for being held, for a place where one can entrust oneself to the flow of life.
In her artistic work, Lydiane Lutz has approached this state for many years with remarkable consistency and sensitivity.

At the center of her painting are people in water. They drift, are held, lose their weight. Water is not only a motif, but a fundamental condition: it stands for relationship, for transition, for letting go of control. As a woman and as an artist, Lutz explores what it means to be carried—through life, in interpersonal connections, in one’s own body. Her figures do not seem to struggle, but to trust.

Formally, the works move between Impressionism, Expressionism, and abstraction. The canvases often remain deliberately open, not filled to the very last centimeter. These open spaces are not voids, but invitations: to one’s own imagination, to meditation, to losing oneself in the image. Longing arises precisely where something is not fixed.

Technically, too, Lutz follows this principle. Pigments in intense, powerful colors dissolve in water, flow into one another, elude complete control, and create a watercolor-like transparency. The image emerges from the interplay of intention and chance—a process that reflects the act of drifting itself.

In her latest series, presented for the first time, the artist takes a consistent step further. The classic canvas is replaced by transparent acrylic glass. The works consist of multiple layers that are spatially separated from one another. The spaces in between—air, distance, permeability—become the main protagonists. Perspective is no longer fixed, but depends on the viewer’s position. Proximity and distance, freedom and connection shift with every movement.

These works pose questions: What do we truly long for? What drives us? What fulfills us? What ultimately makes us human? In a time of artificial intelligence, automation, and a flood of fast-moving images, this slow, physical, breathing painting gains particular relevance. It calls for presence instead of pressing on, sensation instead of efficiency.

Lydiane Lutz’s works remind us that longing is not a lack, but a force. A movement toward the open, the indeterminate—and thus toward ourselves.

Uplifting—this is the most fitting way to describe Lydiane Lutz’s work. The artist works with an interplay of impasto and glazed areas of color. The motifs shift between impressionistically rendered figurative elements and expressive abstraction. A powerful energy emanates from the rich, luminous palette.

Lydiane Lutz’s approach to painting is elemental. Her brushwork reveals her joy in color. Stylistically, the artist follows in the footsteps of the great masters of color such as John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, and Berthe Morisot. In their sketch-like quality, at times extending into abstraction, her works recall Monet’s late water-lily paintings. The often French titles of her works are a homage to the artist’s French roots.

The play with different textures—sometimes glazed, sometimes impasto—creates high-contrast surfaces with a sensual impact. Empty spaces and open areas stimulate the imagination. In this way, atmospheric pictorial spaces emerge that invite the viewer to fully engage with the painting and immerse themselves in it.

A recurring leitmotif is water—an element that unites opposites: softness and hardness, lightness and density, intimacy and sublimity. Depictions of bodies swimming and floating in water convey weightlessness and a sense of being held. The figures invite empathetic identification. One could describe Lydiane Lutz’s painting as a kind of romantic Expressionism, as it is concerned with expressing intense inner emotions.

The bubbling floods of color evoke memories of swimming in open waters: cold and warm currents, the ambivalence between feelings of happiness and awe of the unknown depths and the power of the element. Lydiane Lutz’s painting opens up spaces of longing that convey freedom and playful lightness. In this way, she succeeds in evoking multilayered experiences and bringing metaphors to life.