Latex and rubber are recurrent materials in Klaus’s paintings. Both are carefully treated for their gloss and opacity and are depicted as sensual and erotically charged substances that fascinate and excite. Rubber and latex are the wearer’s uniform, but also another skin. A similar treatment is given to sexual acts, which the artist depicts in a way that makes the viewer perceive the broad spectrum of SM and its fascination. It is a question of roles and their playfulness, the sexualisation of the whole body and the imagination. Klaus describes her themes with warmth and passion, and sometimes with a touch of mischief. It is a fantasy, even if it is real and meaningful.
Klaus’s art world is like a kaleidoscope of desires, where different fetishes and interests take their place. Her art is both participatory and inclusive, as the viewer not only explores the world of fetishes, but can also identify their own interests. Klaus’s work includes paintings that comment on art history, in which the artist has realised her own version in a way that makes us see the art historical role model with new eyes. Hugo Simberg’s Halla has become, in Klaus’s treatment, a treatise on bondage and the pleasure that comes with it. Anna Klaus’s version is a tribute to the work of her historical colleague, but it also makes us wonder how to react to the fetishist version of Halla and how to deal with overt sexuality in art in general. Like Tom of Finland, Klaus creates her own imaginative and sexual utopia in which everyone can reflect on the nature of their own interests and their relationship to sexuality.
