Esra Rotthoff, born and raised in Berlin, graduated from the renowned Berlin University of the Arts and received the honour of being selected a Meisterschülerin. With her background in painting, and view toward cinema as her ultimate inspiration, she creates images in the fields of photographic video and painting. Rotthoff builds stages, spontaneous or meticulously prepared, in which the people portrayed become performers (rather than models) in their own stories, and engage in a liberating creative process. This method results in surreal, contemporary yet eloquent and/or outlandish images with a distinct theatrical and cinematographic power, such as those she has created for the Gorki Theatre. At the Gorki she is responsible for the images on all of the theatre's posters, thereby creating its visual language. With her participation in the production Winterreise by Yael Ronen & Ensemble, she gives the audience a glimpse into other aspects of her work, presenting insights in the sketches and paintings that she created throughout the entire production process with the Exile Ensemble.
