Lin Olschowka’s paintings offer us glimpses of a world that we would not necessarily wish to live in at first glance: the surroundings are cold, the light harsh and the bodies resemble interchangeable objects rather than characterful subjects. One image shows a young, white, conventionally attractive woman in a bikini in an open tanning bed. In another, a glaring beam from a helicopter forms a cone of light in the darkness. Another painting presents the cut, bloody palm of a fleshy hand.

One way of entering the pictorial world Olschowka creates with her paintings on canvas and wood is through the dark green curtain Delft 2 (2023), which the artist borrowed from Jan Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (1657–59). For decades Vermeer’s painting contained a kind of “present absence”, an invisible picture within a picture. In 1979, an X-ray scan revealed that on the wall behind the girl was a portrait of a naked Cupid, the god of love, which had been completely painted over. In 2018, the decision was made to remove this additional layer of paint; an investigation had shown that it could have only been applied after Vermeer’s death. The image within an image has been apparent ever since. “I am interested in pictures within pictures and the act of making them visible,” Olschowka explains. Let’s follow her through the green curtain.