Two faces lean close, their features gathered into flowing bands of yellow, turquoise, orange, blue and violet. Eyes lower, hair ripples across the upper edge, and curved outlines carry one color into the next. In LOVERS, Carmen Rieger, known as IRIS, gives intimacy a vivid and fluid shape. The figures remain recognizable while their colors seem to move through a shared current.
A language discovered through movement
Born in Romania and living in Austria for many years, IRIS graduated in industrial design and worked as a furniture designer before discovering a new artistic direction in 2018. The organic forms created by fluids in motion became the starting point for the visual approach she named IRIS Fluidism.
Water sits at the center of that exploration. For IRIS, it carries meanings of life, transformation, spirituality and the interdependence of living beings. Her work asks how a human figure, an animal or another familiar form can retain its identity while being reimagined through an intricate network of liquid shapes and color.
LOVERS brings that inquiry into a closely framed human encounter. The sweeping blue and violet passages of hair contrast with bright areas of yellow and orange, while turquoise moves through the faces. Dark contours hold the shapes together without stopping their rhythm. Each face has its own presence, yet the meeting of forms makes connection visible across the canvas.
Color as a living relationship
IRIS works with the seven colors of the rainbow and the shades created through their combination. Their significance extends into her understanding of harmony, hope, love and diversity. In this painting, the palette gives a tender gesture an unexpected intensity: closeness becomes a vibrant arrangement of differences held together.
In 2026, her practice entered a new phase with Fluid Neo-Cubism. This development brings the structural principles and fragmentation associated with Cubism into contact with the organic movement and chromatic freedom of Fluidism. It extends her ongoing exploration of how form, perception and identity can transform while remaining connected.
Painted in acrylic on an 80 by 60 cm canvas, LOVERS offers a personal way into that larger vision. Its quiet expressions and moving contours allow stillness and flow to coexist. IRIS invites us to see connection as an active relationship, continually shaped by the colors, forms and lives that meet within it.
Contact the artist: iris-fluidism.com
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