Ceija Stojka survived three concentration camps as a Roma girl. Around the age of 50, she started painting her traumas out of nowhere. She did this secretly between potato peeling, without the support of her family. The colourful gouaches, called Helle Bilder by her, sparkle with the love of life. She was therefore one lump of life force. In vibrant colours, the unpretentious paintings depict idyllic (pre-war) gypsy life. Characteristic is the spontaneous, naive style, the eye for detail and the attention to the landscape. After the vineyards, fields and pumpkin patches on Ceija Stojka’s gouaches, you will soon walk into the fields of St Catharinadal. The artist had many talents. The two traditional Roma songs heard here speak from heart to heart.

The dark gouaches, the Dunkle Bilder, depict the horrors of World War II. These are expressive in tone, sometimes raw and sketchy. The genocide or Porajmos (devouring) in Romani is depicted through marrow. Of her family, which consisted of about 200 people, only six survived the genocide by the National Socialists. It brings to mind the genocides currently taking place. Deeply religious as she was, Ceija Stojka owed her camp survival partly to the Blessed Virgin Mary. On two gouaches in this procession she painted a Marian chapel. This autodidact taught herself to read and write and published several books and books of poetry about her war experiences. She was one of the first Roma to go public with her story.

Ceija Stojka’s participation in A Deeper Shade of Soul also highlights a local micro-history. The land on which St Paul’s Abbey was built was originally a stopping place for caravan dwellers. With the construction of the abbey around 1906, the camp site shifted slightly. Until the camp was disbanded in the 1970s, the friars and Roma were good neighbours who regularly visited each other.