Though Rosemarie Trockel (b. 1952, Schwerte, Germany) has, for the past forty years, resisted a stylistic signature, certain themes recur throughout her practice, notably concerns of female identity and feminism, the distinction between fine art and craftsmanship, and the varied presence of the artist traceable in an object. In paintings made from knitted acrylic wool, like Bathroom (2013), Trockel merges female craft and labor tradition with modern methods of mass production to form an incisive critique of the masculine painting practices that dominated Cologne in the 1980s. The painting’s bold stripes nod to the formal compositions of twentieth-century abstraction, subtly recalling those of Barnett Newman and Daniel Buren, while Trockel’s innovative choice of medium encourages a new reading of form and brings three-dimensionality to the picture plane. ​