"There’s enough space for both of us" by Tariano Schneider 2026
In There’s enough space for both of us, Tariano Schneider transforms the bedroom into a theatrical space of intimacy, identity and self-presentation. Two figures sit beneath an expansive white duvet, their composed expressions and restrained gestures contrasting with the exuberant decorative world around them. The scene is intimate, yet notably free of sentimentality or eroticization.
Born in Ludwigshafen in 1997 and trained at the Kunsthochschule Mainz and HFBK Hamburg, Schneider’s figurative painting explores queerness, objectification and the shifting relationship between self-perception and the gaze of others. His staged environments use clothing, ornament and colour as elements of character and performance. Here, the bedroom functions less as a documentary interior than as a carefully constructed stage.
Pattern dominates the visual language: pink floral ornament covers the deep purple wall, a richly patterned green surface frames the figures, and striped shirts introduce further rhythms of pink, white and blue. Clothing, upholstery and wallpaper merge into an elaborate choreography of colour and pattern.
Against this saturated setting, the white duvet occupies much of the composition. Its soft folds suggest comfort and physical closeness while concealing the bodies beneath it. The bed becomes an ambiguous space. Private yet exposed, intimate yet theatrical. Although the figures are presented to the viewer, they do not appear to perform their intimacy for them.
This tension reflects Schneider’s interest in looking and objectification. The viewer is invited to observe while the subjects retain a sense of distance and self-possession. The title expands this idea: “space” refers not only to the physical space shared by two people, but also to the social and psychological possibility of difference, intimacy and individuality coexisting without one displacing the other.
Through figurative precision, exuberant ornament and cinematic colour, Schneider transforms an ordinary domestic scene into a meditation on visibility, intimacy and self-determination. Beneath its decorative richness lies a quiet proposition: closeness can create space rather than diminish it.