Ilona Griss-Schwärzler paints pictures that claim their space and speak to the viewer. Her focus is on living beings, above all people and portraits, but also animals.

The heart of every painting is the eyes: for her, painting them is like giving birth, because only then does the dialogue begin. Her works gain their remarkable depth from 30 to 40 layers.

The first 25 or so are purely abstract, built up in acrylic, lacquer and resin, before the motif follows in oil, often based on her own photographs.