TELL ME WHERE THE MUSHROOMS ARE, WHERE HAVE THEY GONE? – HERBERT BRANDL

OPENING on Tuesday 22nd of October 2024, 7 PM
Registration necessary via hr@reinisch-graz.com or call +43 699 123 814 22

Gallery Reinisch, Hauptplatz 6, 8010 Graz

INTRODUCTION by Günther Holler-Schuster

Exhibition until 30th of November 2024

Since around 2009, Herbert Brandl has used the monotype technique as a tried and tested means of combining painting and graphics. His approach is very close to his usual painting method. The non-absorbent surface of the acrylic glass plate allows the immediacy of gestural painting before the print is made. The result is a single sheet per printing process. The work has to be done quickly and precisely, which requires enormous confidence and virtuosity.

In terms of content, the artist has focused on two themes this time – landscape and mushrooms. Herbert Brandl’s monotypes, like his paintings in general, seem to have an inner logic of growth. Although his art often depicts, it also bears witness to a process of creation.

Based on the large-format painting of a porcini mushroom, he recently created depictions of fungi. In contrast, these highly complex organisms appear simple in their painterly formulation. The porcini mushrooms are monumental and isolated in the picture – like portraits. The artist pays special attention to them. The sentimental-critical undertone emanating from the title allows us to think of our endangered habitat and is also a reference to general transience.

Günther Holler-Schuster