Wolf­gang Stifter, born in Otten­sheim (Upper Aus­tria) in 1946, stud­ied at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Vien­na from 1964 to 1970 under Prof. Max­i­m­il­ian Melch­er, who will cel­e­brate his 100th birth­day in 2022. I’d be cel­e­brat­ing my birth­day.
“In this exhi­bi­tion Wolf­gang Stifter inter­twines two series of works that have been suc­ces­sive­ly devel­oped for quite some time: “Die Dinge des Lebens (Le cose del­la vita)” start­ed in Italy in 2019 and “Leaves from the Amber Room” already in 2017, where­by the use of hard oils on Japan­ese paper, which make the pic­ture sup­port par­tial­ly translu­cent, rep­re­sents the per­son­al nov­el­ty in these works.
In the for­mer series, “The Things of Life”, mixed media on paper and can­vas, the indi­vid­ual ele­ments that make up the com­po­si­tion of the pic­ture remain more vis­i­ble than before, more con­toured and some­times only loose­ly con­nect­ed to one anoth­er. In the mean­time, the series “Leaves from the Amber Room” is head­ing for a new cli­max: the leaves are get­ting larg­er and denser and — because of their implied ori­gin — are under­laid with Cyril­lic print in their trans­par­ent parts.
All the works bear titles that, in addi­tion to the many zoomor­phic ele­ments, intro­duce a fur­ther asso­cia­tive lev­el that makes the view­er linger longer in front of the pic­ture.” (Wolf­gang Stifter)
Wolf­gang Stifter lives and works in Ottensheim.

Exhi­bi­tion open­ing: Tues­day, 8 Feb­ru­ary 2022, 3 — 6 p.m.

Mar­tin Staufn­er, born in Immenstadt/Allgäu (Ger­many) in 1964, com­plet­ed an appren­tice­ship at the Fach­schule für Gebrauchs­graphik from 1985 to 1989 and stud­ied at the Hochschule für kün­st­lerische und indus­trielle Gestal­tung in Linz from 1990 to 1995. The exhi­bi­tion will fea­ture new works by the artist.
“His moti­va­tion for the paint­ings is borne less by a trans­fig­ured love of plants and archi­tec­ture than by a respect­ful detach­ment from the motif and a fas­ci­na­tion that is root­ed in the rich­ness of form in real­i­ty. As imag­i­na­tive and incred­i­ble as nature shows itself to us, the world of paint­ing and draw­ing is just as won­der­ful and fas­ci­nat­ing. In every paint­ing lies the desire to cap­ture all this for itself and the view­er, but it always suc­ceeds only in cap­tur­ing a moment.” (Mar­tin Staufn­er)
Mar­tin Staufn­er has lived and worked in Linz since 1968.

Exhi­bi­tion open­ing: Tues­day, 8 Feb­ru­ary 2022, 3 — 6 p.m.