Justine Otto's [pictorial] world is populated with girls, women and animals. [ ] The metallic gleam that characterises her paintings turns the protagonists into beings for whom nothing, truly nothing, is unknown. They carry out their business with curiosity, tortured, perhaps also sadistic, but always in a puzzling way, in a no-man's land, without direction. [ ] Through the harshness of her pictures, their implacability, Justine Otto creates a reality, which is neither overdone nor pathetic but which coldly touches a nerve in a present time in which contradictions are either levelled or explode. (Jean-Christophe Ammann) 0Exhibition: Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland (23.3.-1.9.2013). 0.