ALL IN
KURT HÜPFNER
Kurt Hüpfner’s 70 years ongoing oeuvre consists of sculptures, assemblages, collages, paintings, wall hangings, caricatures, graphic reproduction, bundles, text pictures, graphic novels and hundreds of drawings. The starting point of his artwork however is always a drawing. Hüpfner encountered the method of écriture automatique early on in his career. This style was popularized by surrealist artists in the 1920s in Paris and describes a drawing that is not planned or composed. This practice is the opposite of what Hüpfner learned in his education as a commercial artist.
The main themes in his art are political events, personal memories and encounters as well as his personal studies of authors, artists and text sources. The outcome is a unique world, full of mythical creatures and figures, created using a variety of materials, colours and forms. Hüpfner’s art leaves ample room for interpretation. The artist says that he is not interested in the figures and their stories in themselves. His aim is to find the right arrangement of lines on surface, so that only a fleeting impression lingers, as if a moment had come and just slipped away.
CHRISTINE MAYR
Christine Mayr started in the 1980s to focus her work on the complexity sourrounding growing up, being a child, being a mother and simply being a human. Her drawings and sculptures are empathetic, courageous and provocative at the same time. A certain disharmony unites the figures, in their bodies as well as expressions. Physical traits are not always consistent; a young body with an experienced face, gender is often ambiguous - but in Mayr’s opinion this does not matter. Her art is not about realistic representation, but about human experiences and feelings.
Since 2019 Mayr has dedicated herself to a new topic – face blindness. She is working to bring this special form of perception to paper, giving the spectator an impression of how individuals with face blindness experience their environment.
Mayr draws with coloured pencils on paper, her sculptures are constructed from ceramic and are sometimes coloured and glazed. Most of the time she works intuitively, she doesn’t compose her artworks, but simply lets them grow and emerge.
ADRIAN UNCRUT
Adrian Uncrut’s art is shaped by his education in sculpture and restoration at the Bucharest National University of Arts. The general themes of his artwork are based on personal experiences, everyday life and above all "being human”. His artwork is vulnerable, thought-provoking and humorous. He creates his own mythology, in which he is the storyteller and thus is able to be part of the story as well as anobserver. This is how he stays connected to his works while keeping the necessary distance. It gives the spectators the opportunity to get an insight into his inner self, as well as to interpret the work individually for themselves.
Uncrut strikingly uses different materials in his sculptures as well as in his drawings and collages. He mixes bronze, brass, iron, stainless steel, wood, caoutchouc, plaster and from time to time also recycled materials and molds them into individual artworks. In the medium of drawing he uses coal, aquarelle, tape, different types of paper or even coffee to find a unique visual language. It almost appears like they are not two-dimensional drawings, but thin reliefs.
Images: Julia Haimburger © Galerie Dantendorfer