Elisabeth Wedenig
Elisabeth Wedenig was born in 1980 in St. Veit an der Glan, Austria. She received her Magister degree (equivalent to MA) in Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, AT. Additionally she studied at the Art Academy of Latvia in Riga and at the Athens School of Fine Arts, GR. Wedenig has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Austria and abroad, including MUSA, Vienna; Museum des Nötscher Kreises; Künstlerhaus Vienna; Galerie 3, Klagenfurt; bäckerstrasse4, Vienna; Gallery Odile Ouizeman, Paris; Gallery Traklhaus, Salzburg; Vienna Art Week; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Kostanjevica na Krki in Slovenia; Austrian Culture Forum in Washington, London, Budapest, Prague and Bratislava. The artist is in the collection of MMKK- Museum of Modern Art Carinthia, Museum of Nötscher Kreises, Kupferstichkabinett - Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the City of Vienna, the Province of Carinthia and others. 2020 Wedenig received the Austrian State Scholarship for Visual Arts, 2022 the Work Grant of the province of Carinthia. Recent residencies include Marpha Foundation, Nepal 2019. Wedenig currently lives and works in Austria.
Could you tell us more about your background and how you began creating art?
I have always been fascinated by colors and paintings. I grew up in a small town in the south of Austria. My parents were not really into arts, but had a good taste. A befriended couple did almost all furniture at our home. He has been a gifted carpenter and his wife painted on the surfaces of the furniture with rich floral motives. Additionally we had atmospheric paintings from unknown artists. I remember looking at them a lot, maybe also because we did not have television when I was a child. In my high school years I got very passionate about drawing and painting. At that time my father lived in Latvia and after I finished school I went to visit him. He was a master dental technician and many of his employees did study art before. The possibility to spend a year in Riga and study at the Latvian Art Academy came up. Back than I was the only foreign student on the academy and they put me in a painting class with students that where about to graduate. We did paint a lot from life, which was a good contrast to the education in Austria, where the focus was on finding the own expression. Within the years at the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts, I did an Erasmus program at the Academy of fine Arts in Athens.
After education I moved to the countryside. The house I live in, belonged to my grandparents. I take a lot of inspiration out of this place and surrounding.
What does your art aim to say to its viewers?
It is about relationships and the unavoidable entanglement of all life.
My work is based on the intention to create connections with the aim of finding an in-between or a togetherness. I combine painting and drawing, abstraction and figuration, chaos and order and outside and inside.
Many people told me that the images do not reveal themself immediately and the longer they are looking at them, the more they can see.
Also I like the idea that each viewer can have an unique communication with the artwork. And I think the work is only complete when this happens.
Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?
It is a continuous gathering of fragments of external observations and internal experiences. Everyday situations and sketches find space next to dream sequences and real travel impressions. I am fascinated by the painting process itself. During the process the painting is changing several times and my first intention might not be visible in the end. I like to compare this process with a deep conversation. I work mainly with oils, acrylics and colored pencils. Various materials such as primed and unprimed canvas, different paper or found objects are the carriers of the images.
The first decision is the choice of the material. In my latest works I started with drawing on the unprimed canvas and than I paint on it so the color can be soaked in by the fabric. After drying I put transparent primer and on some parts Gesso. Layer by layer, both abstract and representational forms grow together.
Within my working process I love to take another look at my paintings when they are finished. Usually there are some details that catch my attention and so I do some drawings based on the painting. I like to contrast the large format, intensely colored paintings with more delicate, intimate colored pencil drawings.
Basically, I spend the morning and later afternoon in the studio. However there are periods when I spend all day in the studio. I think it is important to take breaks, especially after intense times of working on an exhibition. Maybe that’s sometimes the hardest part, to let go, doing nothing from time to time to let something new grow and to wait for the right moment to start over again.
What is the essential element in your art?
Colour. I have loved color for as long as I can remember in its intensity, clarity or subtlety and their interplay. For me, painting has something magical and archaic about it. It offers the opportunity to tell a story with color, to evoke a mood, a feeling or a vague memory.
In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?
Art is a place of self-reflection. Viewing or experiencing art always has something to do with ourselves. It is not only a mirror of the times but also a mirror of the viewer. We may read an artwork, a play, a novel, a song differently at different stages in our lives, and each one of us reads it in its own way. Our perception is tied to personal memories and experiences. At the same time, art has an expanding effect, it opens up new perspectives and asks questions. That is what artists give to society.
