Hella De Santarossa - Je ne regrette rien

• Friday, September 4 through Saturday, October 24, 2026
• Opening on Thursday, September 3, at 7 p.m.
• Introduction: Heinz-Norbert Jocks, Düsseldorf

Hella De Santarossa is a German painter, glass artist, sculptor, performance artist, and filmmaker.

Her works are associated with the Neo-Expressionism of the Junge Wilde movement and can be found, among other places, in the Berlin Reichstag, in public spaces, in churches, museums, and art collections. She lives and works in Berlin.

She studied fine art painting at the HdK Berlin and was a master student of Prof. Karl-Horst Hödicke.

In 1978, she was a founding member of the Galerie am Moritzplatz, and from 1982 to 1992, she served as artist chair of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien.

Hella De Santarossa tells history and stories. She creates imaginative, forward-looking symbols of dreams and signs of reflection. Surely her most striking work is the mysterious Blue Obelisk on Theodor-Heuss-Platz in Berlin, situated right in the middle of the kilometer-long visual axis leading to the Brandenburg Gate. Since her studies at the Berlin-West University of the Arts, she has repeatedly created series of paintings, photo series, sculptures, and films—cross-art from the very beginning.

“These are all images of memory,” she says of her work. They often involve dance and movement, as well as the passion and ecstasy of life.

The exhibition features works from the 1980s as well as more recent pieces created in 2025–26.

Heinz-Norbert Jocks studied German language and literature, philosophy, and history at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

He works as a freelance curator, author, and correspondent for *Kunstforum International*.