MUNTHE ART MONDAY: MADITA KLOSS
Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.
My name is Madita Kloss. I am a painter from Vienna who lives in the woods with her family. I am obsessed with color! My work is colorful, vivid, and bold. It expresses a strong female presence and a deep love for oneself.
Madita is wearing the ROSALIN top from our PRE-SPRING 2026-collection.
Madita is wearing the LESTINE jacket.
Can you name some other female (artist) that inspires you and explain why they do so?
My style evokes art-historical associations with Paula Modersohn-Becker, Irma Stern, and Frida Kahlo, all of whom inspire me. This year, I discovered the tapestry work of Lise Gujer. She translated Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s paintings into tapestry with such astonishing skill that Kirchner, in turn, became inspired by her and created works based on her tapestries.
Bettina Willnauer is another artist working with tapestry. She tells beautiful stories with her self-dyed yarns.
Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?
My turn toward painting has its roots in a deeply personal phase of my life - my pregnancy with my first son, Koloman. This intense experience unleashed the colors within me. As a woman, you rebuild yourself through the experience of motherhood. But motherhood also carries risks. Being a mother can force you into a kind of narrow-mindedness. If I were only a mother, I would become depressed - I desperately needed self-expression. I am a mother of two and have no hesitation in speaking and working openly and confidently about motherhood and femininity. This complete authenticity permeates my colorful works, which are always marked by a powerful physicality.
My feminist attitude does not consist of condemning the masculine or portraying women merely as victims - I am interested in complexity, ambivalence, and a loud, immediate form of expression. A raw handling of luminous color meets iconographic symbolism, pop-cultural references, and echoes of classical literature. Even reading aloud to my children becomes a source of inspiration - truly, everything from everyday life inspires me.
Madita is wearing the ROSALIN top.
What would you like people to notice in your artwork?
I paint from life - and in doing so, I hope to move my viewers. I want to invite them to reflect on themselves in a spirit of self-acceptance or even love.
What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?
The most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts is being a mother. This is where the circle closes. It isn’t easy to combine family life and art. Sometimes I feel that I am not working enough, and at other times I fear that I am not a good enough mother. I am searching for a balance that allows me to devote myself to both worlds in a fulfilling way.
Photographer: Nada Kloss-Klimt
