Aurelia Gratzer: Antigone

However, these singularly placed planes are the painterly essence of Gratzer's pictures. Each individual layer is depicted differently in the painting. Even if the perception of the individual components sometimes tries to convince the viewer that spray and stencil were used in the transfer to the canvas, the opposite is actually the case. Aurelia Gratzer's only aid apart from paint and brush is the ruler.

The starting point of her work is the supposedly architectural, in that she finds the basis for her works in relevant magazines.  The realisation on the picture ground becomes a game of dissolution, of ‘unfolding’ the individual structures and thus causes the alienation of not recognising them. Her pictures thus always oscillate between abstraction and representationalism and yet this is a categorical attempt at observation that is irrelevant in her overall work. It is and remains painting - with all its irritations, possibilities, colour fields and forms of expression.

The work ‘Serpens’ demonstrates this beautifully. An apparent central perspective aligns the entire picture to a single point - or does it? The structure in the foreground seems to obey other laws as it tilts into the plane and ignores the supposed vanishing point. The in front of and behind, the depth and the surface, all this blends together and thus deceives the viewer.

In contrast to her earlier works, the new works have become even clearer, even more rational and yet the individual colour fields are more painterly. The basic idea of binocular vision has become more and more concentrated since the beginning of her involvement with painting and has become the main focus of a stringent and coherent further development in Aurelia Gratzer's work. New works from 2015 can be seen in the exhibition, which once again promise to delve deeper into the subject of painting and perception.