Dataprotection

Hannes Gstöttenmayr

Resume

1957 born in Linz
1972-80 stained-glass studio of the Monastery Schlierbach
1980-86 Studied painting at the University of Art and Design in Linz under Prof. Eric van Ess
1986 Married, two sons
1986-99 Assistant for technology of painting and artistic print processes - letterpress at the University of Art and Design in Linz
Lives and works as a freelance painter in Zenndorf, Upper Austria

Exhibitions

Numerous solo and group exhibitions - latest:

2014 Exhibition at Neue Galerie im Stift Seitenstetten, Lower Austria
2014 Exhibition at Galerie Neunzendorf
2015 Exhibition at Galerie KONTUR in Vienna

Gallery

Exhibition texts

EARTH AND SKY

Everything has been experienced, has been watched intensely, and has been brought into a form that has an effect equally intense.

The earth weighs heavily, the sky is light, and the clouds – rising water vapour – are lighter than the earth but heavier than the sky, yet shining white in the sunlight. The earth is either plane, or hilly or even mountainous, houses are built on the ground in a firm arrangement even though they are illuminated by the sun and seem to be floating. Not only treetops and a horizon consisting of differently shaped treetops are depicted explicitly, but also the clouds are figurative and nuanced in colour. The ground and the buildings are an entity and so are earth, sky and clouds. There is nothing uncertain and unformed. Just like the ground, even if overgrown with grass, is transformed into laden figurations or in ones connecting with a rural architecture, contours of gently or wildly but always rhythmically moved tree tops and groves reach into the sky. The red glow of a sunset is heavy but the trees in front of it are even heavier and their coloured darkness stands up to the burning sunset. A still life of flowers in a pot is constructed in a way that the image is put into a figurative tension as well as into a tension that stems from the colours. Directions given by the interior design and the flower pot determine the arrangement of the flowers, and therefore all items occurring in the picture are actually in a formal relation to each other.

A clear and intertwining figuration and a captivating colouration distinctly matched to it extend the >Spirit of the Age<, in which the earthly and the cosmic correlate on a scientific basis. Hannes Gstöttenmayr’s latest work is defined by sharp but mastered contrasts and a surprising unanimity between earthy and cloudy figurations and man-made ones. For me, it is a convincing example of earth, vegetation, clouds and sky moving the mind and motivating a work of true art even in a time of people spending their lives doing mechanised and automatized labour and making full use of the leisure industry. Nature is not historical past, but fertile present.

Heimo Kuchling (text on exhibition, July 2012) EARTH AND SKY

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