Lukas Luzius Leichtle Gets Under Our Skin

While being part of the body, the skin in Lukas Luzius Leichtle’s oil paintings functions as something separate: no longer a comforting enclosure but a distancing surface. In his solo exhibition ‘Eindringling’ (Intruder) at the CCA Berlin, the body becomes an estranged counterpart, prompting us to question whether we ever fully understand our own corporeality or whether we are, in some ways, always an intruder within it. 

On entry, I first encounter Father’s Sleeping Shirt (all works 2025): a powder-pink T-shirt that appears to float inside out, perhaps caught in the act of being removed. The delicate composition and handling of oil on linen fuses fabric and flesh: creases become wrinkles and folds gather like skin, exposing the protection we seek in textiles and the indistinct threshold between interior and exterior, clothing and body. This sets the tone for the rest of this intimate presentation, where unguarded aspects of embodiment are unveiled – positioning the gaze as intrusive.

Nearly all the paintings are observed through glass, a remnant of the building’s former office layout. This spatial device introduces an initial distance, the boundary evoking both preservation and detachment. I notice my reflection in the glass, my silhouette swallowing the two small, near-identical works before me: both titled Untitled (December). Each depicts the artist’s own distorted back resting atop a plush white sheet. The tight crop and small scale omit any distinguishing features, transforming the body’s fleshy contours into an abstract surface. Muscular tissue, shoulder blades and the outlines of ribs become visible as an effect of the torso’s tense contortions. Skin clings like clothing, giving the viewer space to examine its true capacity to protect and conceal.

Leichtle’s paintings entail a laborious process of layering and removal to emulate the physical structure of skin. Transparent glazes are built up, then stripped away with sandpaper and electric nail files. The results oscillate between illusion and exposure, at times achieving a soft, almost flawless finish, at others revealing the weave of the primed linen beneath. This plays into the central tensions of Leichtle’s work: the viewer is persuaded into believing in its verisimilitude only to be reminded of its artifice. 

This duality is most visible in Probe (1), (2) and (3), part of an ongoing series depicting entangled fingers. The nails appear buffed, almost polished, whilst the surrounding skin is rough and coarse. The juxtaposition exposes the sensual yet unsettling aspects of the body and its strange protective measures: fingernails are a shell to the fingertips; a device with which to pick. In these works, obsession is mediated through repetition as the artist’s preoccupation with hands becomes addictive, exaggerated far beyond familiarity. Hands become inflated sites of anxiety and a subject – as their titles suggest – for study.

In Fuge (6) and (7), Leichtle turns his attention to bathroom tiles. Using a green underpainting technique traditionally employed in Renaissance portraiture to render flesh, he applies structural layering and tonal richness to these cold, lifeless objects. The effect is a subtle overlap between skin and surface, capturing the lingering residue of human presence. Leichtle’s life-size sections of tiled wall, with their implied infinite composition and dramatic lighting, possess a sense of depth that only intensifies the atmosphere of unease. The bathroom, typically a space of safety and intimacy, becomes compromised, marked by a slow build-up of soap scum or the yellowing creep of mildew. 

Progressing through the exhibition, I gain a compulsive need for close reading and find myself on multiple occasions standing centimetres away from the canvases. Seduced by a need to understand its creation, I attempt to read the surfaces for signs – details that might uncover what is happening beneath. On my journey home I become neurotically preoccupied with every detail of my hand, re-examining its terrain anew. 

Lukas Luzius Leichtle’s ‘Eindringling’ is on view at CCA Berlin until 20 December

_{Main image: Lukas Luzius Leichtle, Probe (1), (2) and (3), 2025, oil on linen, 55 × 60 cm. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Diana Pfammatter/CCA Berlin}