NAVOT MILLER: Paradise isn’t a location. It’s not a goal. It’s a moment. You see someone resting, someone laughing, light coming through a curtain, a body turning. And you know: this is it. But then it’s gone. It’s so fragile. That’s why I paint—to hold on, just a little longer. And sometimes, to let go.

NM: André Schlechtriem visited my studio on October 7, 2023. A traumatic day—for me personally, and for the world. But he showed up anyway. He brought a giant bouquet of sunflowers—yellow, yellow, yellow, green—wrapped in pink paper. He knew my colors. That gesture stayed with me.

We talked for hours. About painting, about vulnerability, about how to show intimacy without spectacle. And from the beginning, it was clear: this wouldn’t be a typical white cube presentation. André gave me a stage, not just a wall. He offered space—literal and emotional—to reimagine how my work could be seen. To hang shower curtains instead of frames. To turn the gallery into something intimate, theatrical, and deeply personal.

NM: Because I loved my drawings. I worked with pastel, and I felt like I could say everything with it. I was afraid I’d lose that when I started painting. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it. But in 2021, during lockdown, I had time, a studio in Tempelhof, and no job. So I painted. And now I work with oil—with a joy I never expected

NM: I film or photograph with my phone. I capture what happens. A man sleeping. Two people hugging. Someone jumping. I rarely tell people how to pose. Recently I was at a festival where everyone slept outside near a lake. It looked like an installation. I stepped back, observed—and knew: this is a painting.

NM: It shows me and someone I met in Mexico. We had sex, and then we just cuddled. I made a video—ten minutes of just lying together. That’s what I’m interested in. Not the sex, but the after. Spooning. Silence. That’s the honest part. That’s the beauty.

NM: Yes. I painted the Paradise series while I was heartbroken. I was deeply in love with someone—he appears in one of the works under the name Eli. He asked me not to use his real name. During those months in New York, in the quiet of my studio while it was snowing outside, I missed him intensely. So I paint. I paint the people I miss. That’s my engine.

NM: Exactly. Not one scene takes place in Berlin. The works are set in France, Mexico, New York—but they all come from my Berlin years. Berlin was the place that shaped me in my twenties. Every trip, every love, every friendship from that time flows into these paintings. Even now, living mostly in New York, Berlin is part of who I am. When I tell people here about myself, I say: I’m from Berlin. It never left me.

NM: I was inspired by Hanya Yanagihara, the writer of A Little Life. I read her second book To Paradise, which was less known but still powerful. We have a connection through my gallerist in New York. I asked her: can I use the word for my show? She said: absolutely, do it. The word felt right. Grand, contradictory, emotional. For me, paradise isn’t peace. It’s beauty in the middle of life. It’s fragile. It disappears.

NM: Yes! We have music playing in the gallery. Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For — the acoustic version without vocals — was a key track. Before the opening, I was upstairs in André’s apartment. We played that song in silence. I stood by the window, looking out at the Volksbühne — and I just started crying. Not out of sadness. But because everything suddenly made sense: the colors, Berlin, heartbreak, the curtains, the people outside. André didn’t say anything. He let me have that moment. And then, when the song ended, he simply asked: “Are you ready? Can we go downstairs?”

We opened the door to the street. People were already waiting. The curtains were still closed. And then — Paradise began.