ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Thomas Gegner

After he started his career in a foundry, Thomas Gegner completed four years of studies in communication science and art history, when he transitioned into fine art in 2004. At the same time he consciously decided not to study fine arts within an academic system, to be able to rely on his own intuitive approach without being influenced. Since then he is working as an artist in various studios and locations like Schloss Hagenberg in Lower Austria, Atelier Abtsdorf in Attersee etc.

Besides his work on his paintings he started making collages since 2010. His investigations on the mechanisms of providing information include pictorial and textual elements from collected books, fashion magazines, newspapers etc. In his collages he often creates an atmosphere of artificiality and uncanniness connected with a sense of humor, evoking questions about the subtle function of given information transfer.

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

Jen Rosenblit 

Jen Rosenblit (US/DE) makes performances surrounding architectures, bodies and ideas concerned with problems that arise inside of agendas for togetherness, Rosenblit’s works lean toward the uncanny and maintenance of care, locating ways of being together amidst impossible spaces. The research process tracks the tangential rather than the linear, looking for meaning as it emerges between things.
Rosenblit has collaborated with artists including Simone Aughterlony, Miguel Gutierrez, A.K. Burns and Philipp Gehmacher. Recent works include I’m Gonna Need Another One (2018-2019 co-production between Sophiensaele (DE) and The Chocolate Factory Theater (NYC)), Everything Fits In The Room (a 2017 collaboration with Simone Aughterlony, HAU Hebbel am Ufer), Swivel Spot (2017, The Kitchen), Clap Hands (2016, The Invisible Dog/New York Live Arts), a Natural dance (2014, The Kitchen).
Rosenblit is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2018 Atelier Mondial Artist-in-Residence in Basel, Switzerland, a 2015-16 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, a 2014-2015 Workspace Artist through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, a recipient of a 2014 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, a 2013 Fellow at Insel Hombroich (Nuese, Germany) and a recipient of the 2012 Grant to Artists from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

photo: © gerald kurdian

Alex Franz Zehetbauer

Alex Franz Zehetbauer (born 1990 in Brooklyn) is a singer and performance artist based in Vienna. His work searches for the animal and queer and engages with the voice as an embodied activity that moves aqueously between the realms of the physical, energetic, and collective-subconscious body. Alex is obsessed with water as a material and situation, as well as watery concepts of embodiment. He is trained in Aguahara and offers private sessions of his own take on this aquatic bodywork, incorporating his lexicon of underwater voice explorations and their capacity to caress the physical body. Alex studied vocal performance, dance, acting and composition at the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the International Theater Workshop in Amsterdam. His works have been shown in New York, Baltimore, Vienna, and Madalena, Azores and have been supported by Leimay Cave, Arts Unfold, INK Initiative, Arbeitsplatz Wien, Evening Hours NY, Huggy Bears, APAP, brut Wien and Wien Kultur; he has been awarded the BKA Startstipendium für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (2018), the TURBO Residency - ImPulsTanz 2018, the TQW Training Scholarship (2019), and the danceWEB Scholarship (2019).

photo: © franzi kreis

Weifei

Weifei, who was born in Yingcheng city of China in 1987. Freelance Artist. Graduated from the Sculpture Department of Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in 2011. Bachelor of literature degree. Now working and living in Wuhan China.

Selection of numerous group exhibitions:
November 2019-”Tipping Point”Art Exhibition (Vienna, Austria)
October 2019-”Water As The Medium”Art Exhibition. (Wuhan, China)
September 2019-”Parallel Wien” Art Fair ( Vienna, Austria)
September 2019-”Medo space” Art Residency (Austria)
September 2018-Zhengzhou International
Exhibition (Silver Award).(Zhengzhou,China)
November 2017-Glogauair Art Residency And Open Studio Exhibition (Berlin, Germany)
June 2014 - Kaiser Art Star Nomination Exhibition (Beijing
Today Art Museum)
November 2013 - The first contemporary youth sculpture exhibition and the first international contemporary art exhibition of Hubei (Wuhan, Hubei Provincial Library)
June 2013 - The 55th Venice Biennale Exhibition "never presented parallel voice - Chinese independent art exhibition" album library project exhibition

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

MaJia

Ma Jia was born 1981 in Jilin, China. After studying at the Art School Of China Art Academy, Hangzhou and at the Central Academy Of Fine Art in Beijing, she was living and working in Beijing. Moving to Vienna in 2011, she started studying at the Academy of Fine Arts as a student of Heimo Zobernig where she graduated in autumn this year.

After participating in numerous exhibitions in China and Austria, she received 2019 the Parallel Vienna / Bildrecht Young Artists Award.

Starting in the field of paining, she later expanded to the medium of sculpture, varying from very small pieces to huge monumental works. Inspired by almost every artist in front of her eyes the reduced formal language of her work is referring to minimalism, geometric abstraction and Russian avant-garde. 

Having a concept in mind what to look for, she locates steel objects on places like construction sites where she extracts them from their context and treats them like painting, using steel as canvas, rust as colour and the act of installation as construction of the pictorial space.

However the purpose of her works is to use the abstract form as a symbol to express intuitively undisclosed truths, that have been hidden underneath the surface and haven’t been spoken about.

photo: © florian schmeiser

Stefan Tiefengraber

Stefan Tiefengraber (*1981) lives and works in Linz, Austria. After six years of working for a film production company he moved to Linz in 2010 to study at the University of Art and Design Linz. 2012/13 One-year exchange at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul/Korea. 2015 Six-month residency (MMCA Changdong) stay in Seoul/Korea. Since 2016 organizer of sound art concerts and co-founder of Tresor Linz. 2020 Jury member of the Prix Ars Electronica.
His work ranges from kinetic sound installations and interactive installations to audio-video noise performances. Tiefengraber experiments with the modification of devices, which are originally manufactured for different purposes. Combined with the perception of the audience, this experimental attempt of exploring old and new materials leads him to new and unpredictable results.
The artist’s work was shown at Ars Electronica Festival 2019 (Linz/Austria), Galerie gerken (Berlin/Germany), TodaysArt 2014 (Den Haag/Netherlands), New Media Gallery (Vancouver/Canada), 16th Media Art Biennale WRO 2015 (Wroclaw/Poland), Blaues Rauschen (Bochum/Germany), …

photo: © stefan tiefengraber

Stephanie Misa

Stephanie Misa (PHL / USA) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2012. She has a masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, and is currently a doctoral researcher at the University of Arts in Helsinki. Her work consistently displays an interest in complex and diverse histories, relating to these topics through her installations, sculptures, videos, prints, and writing— bringing forward questions of historical identity, ‘authenticity’, hybridity, and embodiment. Her projects include future residencies at Art Space Sydney and RMIT Intersect and participation in the 9th Bucharest Biennale and the upcoming Research Pavilion #4 during the first Helsinki Biennale (2021).⁠ 

photo: © jolly schwarz photography

Karo Kuchar

Karo Kuchar was born in Vienna as the daughter of Polish and Czech immigrants who came to Austria in the early 80ies. After completing her studies in law and some years of professional experience in this field she finally decided  to quit and to apply at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Since then she focuses on her artistic work only. 

At the moment Karo Kuchar lives and works in Paris. 

photo: © marco prenninger

Matt Mottel

Matt Mottel (born 1981, New York, NY) is an artist, performer and writer who enlivens primary source materials and creates  collaborative artworks that amplify knowledge and provide access to subterranean culture. Social activism and cultural community are threads that run throughout Mottel’s extensive body of performances, videos,  sculptures and music. Mottel’s comprehensive artistic foraging stems from his native New York upbringing.

His B.A. is  in Political & Cultural Studies (SUNY New Paltz, 2003). He graduated from City College’s Digital Intermedia Art Practice program, receiving a M.F.A. in2019.

Mottel builds geodesic domes as a performance architecture based on Syeus Mottel’s (father) 1970’s photojournalism of Loisaida cultural organization CHARAS, who built geodesic domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller.

He is currently researching the 18th century era of the keytar and is also inspired by the 24 hour  format that was HnH Bagels….

‘it's everything.’

Mottel has presented work at the MoMA ,New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Kitchen, New York; Deitch Projects, New York; All Tomorrow's Parties Festival, London and Moers Music, Germany.

Recent invitations include Salzburg Summer Art Academy,Austria (2019);  Mumei Art Space, Tokyo (2019); Pioneer Works (2018); mhPROJECT, NYC (2018); Loisaida Center, NYC. (2018); Situations Gallery, NYC (2017).

He has contributed articles for Art News (2019, 2017). Interviewed for The Brooklyn Rail (2017) and by writer Kembrew Mcleod as the epilogue to The Downtown Pop Underground (2018, Abrams Press), which closes with Mottel’s first person account of his artwork Levitation of Vice Media into the East River (2015).

In 2010, Mottel was selected by the ISSUE Project Room founder Suzanne Fiole as an Artist in Residence, and it was in this period that he  developed an ongoing multimedia project that utilizes the cultural photography of his father, Syeus Mottel.

He was also at Residency Unlimited A.I.R. in 2010 (NYC), and Mottel was at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council A.I.R in 2011, collaborating with dance choreographer Karole Armitage. 

photo: © matt mottel

Urban Grünfelder

born in 1967 in Brixen/Italien 

Academy of fine arts Vienna
1989 study of sculpture (Prof. B. Gironcoli) 
1990 study of painting (Prof. M. Prachensky) 
1993 study of painting (Prof. A. Rainer)
1995 diploma in painting

selection of exhibitions/fairs

2021
Franzensfeste, Festung, Kunst im Advent
Vienna, gallerygundulagruber, Are we gambling away the world?

2020
Bozen, Südtiroler Künstlerbund, artigathome

2019
Dresden, Biennale, Ismen
Wien, Kunstraum David, Was vom Menschen Bleibt?

2018
Valetta, Biennale, found a mentalism II

2017
Klagenfurt, Kunstverein Kärnten, Ahead of the game Dresden, Ostrale Biennale

2016
Brixen, Hofburg, Garten

2015
Dresden, Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Ostrale 2015

photo: © urban grünfelder

Reiner Heidorn

Reiner Heidorn processes the relationship between man and nature in his oversized and mostly monochrome paintings. The desire to unite with nature and even to dissolve into it - Reiner Heidorn gives form and colour to this thought. Over the years of his work, he has developed his very own painting technique and given it a name - "Dissolutio", which means disappearance. His paintings are made up of microscopic elements, the most diverse shades of green and blue arrange themselves fluidly in gentle transitions on the canvas. They suggest forests, lakes, plants and even entire, self-contained worlds. His artistic work is thus part of a contemporary discourse on socially topical issues such as climate change or the alienation of humans from their natural environment.

photo: © reiner heidorn

Daniela Trinkl

Daniela Trinkl is an Austrian visual Artist based in Vienna. Trinkl works in the fields of sculpture and installation with her predominant materials being polyurethane foam and ceramic. In her work she addresses themes of the enigmatic, the symbolic and the archaic following a playful and intuitive approach. Her multicolored, powerful sculptures remind us of objects and beings from unknown cultures and spheres and evoke an otherworldly feeling. Future issues related to modern technologies, posthumanism, but also ideas from pop culture such as science fiction or concepts from religion and mysticism play an important role as a source of inspiration in Trinkl´s work.

After completing her Bachelor Degree in History of Art Trinkl is now studying at the University of Art and Design in Linz at the Department of Sculptural Conceptions where she is completing her Master Degree with Prof. Frank Louis.

Trinkl has shown her work in several national as well as international exhibitions. Her last exhibitions include House of losing control at Vienna Art Week (2021) and BestOff Kunstuni Linz (2021) where she was selected to take part by Angela Stief, director of Albertina Modern, and Florian Waldvogel, Head of Moderne Sammlung, Ferdinandeum Tirol. Trinkls work can be found in private as well as public collections such as Dr. Hans Hoch Stiftung in Neumünster/D. Trinkl received various working and travel grants, e.g. Reisestipendium by Bundeskanzleramt Vienna. Furthermore she was chosen to take part in several Artist in Residence Programmes such as Die KUNSTsammlung des Landes OÖ at Salzamt Linz and the renowned PILOTENKUECHE in Leipzig. Trinkl has taken part in Artist Talks such as Kunstquartier Alte Handelsschule Leipzig and was invited to talk about her work at Freies Radio Neumünster where she did one of her residencies. 

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

Michael Endlicher

Michael Endlicher, Viennese, lives and works as a visual artist in Vienna. He has a degree in business administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. Endlicher is a member of the Wiener Künstlerhaus and also works regularly in various artist duos - for example with Cynthia Schwertsik as CEMS. He has been a friend of the GPLcontemporary gallery in Vienna for years. His works can be found in private and public collections (Kultum Graz, City of Vienna, Klosterneuburg Abbey and others).

Using various media and processes, Michael Endlicher explores elective affinities between images and language, art production and reception - and in the process allows new ones to emerge.

photo: © michael endlicher

MaJia

MaJia was born 1981 in Jilin, China. After studying at the Art School Of China Art Academy, Hangzhou and at the Central Academy Of Fine Art in Beijing, she was living and working in Beijing. Moving to Vienna in 2011, she started studying at the Academy of Fine Arts as a student of Heimo Zobernig where she graduated in autumn this year.

After participating in numerous exhibitions in China and Austria, she received 2019 the Parallel Vienna / Bildrecht Young Artists Award.

Starting in the field of paining, she later expanded to the medium of sculpture, varying from very small pieces to huge monumental works. Inspired by almost every artist in front of her eyes the reduced formal language of her work is referring to minimalism, geometric abstraction and Russian avant-garde. 

Having a concept in mind what to look for, she locates steel objects on places like construction sites where she extracts them from their context and treats them like painting, using steel as canvas, rust as colour and the act of installation as construction of the pictorial space.

However the purpose of her works is to use the abstract form as a symbol to express intuitively undisclosed truths, that have been hidden underneath the surface and haven’t been spoken about.

photo: © florian schmeiser

Julia Zöhrer

Julia Franziska Zöhrer was born in Gmunden, Upper Austria. The artist studied from 2012 to 2018 at the Linz Art University with Prof. Ursula Hübner.
Since her studies, she has lived and worked in Linz.

The artist has had exhibitions in Linz, Salzburg, Graz, Vienna, Berlin, Krasnoyarsk and Minsk, among others. She also won second place in the Koschatzky Art Award in 2021.

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

Margareta Klose

Margareta Klose (born 1993 in Berlin, lives in Salzburg, Vienna and Brussels) deals with the themes of coexistence in the context of a queer-feminist, artistic practice. She studied, among other institutions, at the Mozarteum Salzburg and painting at the École de Recherche Graphique Bruxelles and completed the Master TransArts at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. Klose works in  different media such as painting, textile works and also performance. Most recently, she was shown in a group exhibition at the Salzburger Kunstverein.

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

Armine Maksudyan

Armine Maksudyan is an artist and an architect with an international background whose work deals with interdisciplinary fields, such as spatial design and intervention. Her most used medium is installation and media art. Born in Yerevan, Armenia, raised in Moscow, Russia, gained academic degree in architecure and worked in Milan, Italy. Continued architectural career in Vienna, Austria, where she was mostly exhibited. Currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

From 2014 has been collaborating with her sister, Daisy Asvazadurian under the name of Maksudyan Sisters, focusing their cinematic and artistic collaboration on sociocultural realm. Had screenings and shows in Top Kino, Vienna, Babylon Kino, Berlin, Parallel Vienna, Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Galerie, Vienna, Austria.
From 2016 has been collaborating with Austrian artists such as Heidulf Gerngross, Elisabeth Penker and pursuing her own art projects.

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

Stefan Tiefengraber

Stefan Tiefengraber lives and works in Linz/Austria. After working for a TV and film production company for six years, he moved to Linz in 2010 to study at the Linz University of the Arts. 2012/13 One-year exchange at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul/Korea. 2015 Six-month residency (MMCA Changdong) in Seoul/Korea. Since 2016 organiser of sound art concerts and co-founder of Tresor Linz. 2020 Jury member of the Prix Ars Electronica. 2021 Excellence Award 24th Japan Media Arts Festival.
Tiefengraber's artistic works range from audio-video noise performances to kinetic sound installations and time-based projects such as experimental videos. These works have been shown at numerous national and international exhibitions. Japan Media Arts Festival 2021 (Tokyo/Japan), New Media Gallery (Vancouver/Canada), Blaues Rauschen - (Bochum/Germany), Galerie Gerken (Berlin/Germany), Ars Electronica Festival 2021 (Linz/Austria), 16th Media Art Biennale WRO 2015 (Wroclaw/Poland), ...

photo: © verena mayrhofer

Bianca Regl

2010 Co-Founder, since 2017 Director OFF 空间 / Beijing, China >> http://www.blackbridgeoff.com
2005-2007 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES / Graduate Painting, Los Angeles, California, USA
2003-2005 AKADEMIE DER BILDENDEN KÜNSTE WIEN / Hubert Schmalix, Figurative Painting, A
2002-2003 KUNSTUNIVERSITÄT LINZ / Ursula Huebner, Painting, Linz, A
2001-2002 ATELIERS DE BEAUX-ARTS PARIS / Francois Maigret, Drawing and Printmaking, Paris, F

Born in Linz. Lives and works in Beijing and Vienna.

photo: © nathan murrell

Simon Kubik

Simon Kubik is an artist born in 1998, lives and works in Vienna and is also active as a communication designer. After graduating from the Graphische, he did his civilian service in an artist's workshop with people with disabilities; he works as a communication designer in agencies as well as independently. Since 2022 he has been studying transmedia art with Jakob Lena Knebl at the University of Applied Arts.

photo: © nathan murrell

Soli Kiani

Artist Statement Soli Kiani
How bad the loss of control over one’s life, body or daily routine can be, we have all experienced more or less since the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic, regardless of nation, color, religion or gender. But what if this loss of control is not caused by a global pandemic and yet happens completely involuntarily? What is it like to grow up from birth in a country, a society or family that is caught up in ideologies that de facto dictate to you how to behave in every area of daily life? If it is laid down by law, what are the consequences of not following these rules or daring to resist them? The feeling that you don’t have the air to breathe becomes a permanent state! In this situation, loss of control and freedom take on a different dimension and value! I was born and grew up in Iran and deal with this issue in my work.

photo: © eva kelety

Margit Maria Hartnagel

Margit Hartnagel studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, in the classes of Hollegha, Hikade, Graf and Prachensky, and at the University of Applied Arts, spatial art with Brigitte Kowanz.
Her work explores the painterly two-dimensional pictorial space, but also the three-dimensional in the form of objects, performances and art on building projects.
For more than 20 years, she has subjected the pictorial space to a strict reduction in search of the essential. In the process, the conditions of painting are also examined and consciously chosen as image-constituting (not as a means to an end).  
A favourite phrase of the artist:
"That which I allow myself to encounter a viewer with the power of a painting is the little that remains when everything is left out that leads somewhere."
Constantly seeking to refine and adapt the technical possibilities to her painterly needs, she found a very special technique when she returned to her home region in 2012: Pigments bound in incense milk. She first applies these, diluted with a lot of water, in glazing layers to form ossifyingly condensing bodies of colour. In her current painting, "arising colours", she lets the paint drip almost opaquely onto very wet bodies.

photo: © dieter decker

Florian Nährer

Florian Nährer was born in St. Pölten. After studying art history at the University of Vienna, he completed studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the Prachensky and Obholzer master schools and at the same time studied Catholic theology, also in Vienna. 
He then became an assistant to Hermann Nitsch and Erwin Wurm. 
He is represented in numerous Austrian collections and has participated in projects and exhibitions in Austria and abroad.

photo: © dieter decker

Margareta Klose

Margareta Klose (born 1993 in Berlin, lives in Salzburg, Vienna and Brussels) deals with the themes of coexistence in the context of a queer-feminist, artistic practice. She studied, among other institutions, at the Mozarteum Salzburg and painting at the École de Recherche Graphique Bruxelles and completed the Master TransArts at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. Klose works in  different media such as painting, textile works and also performance. Most recently, she was shown in a group exhibition at the Salzburger Kunstverein and recently at the Belvedere 21 in Vienna.

photo: © gallerygundulagruber

Luisa Hübner

I am in love with objects and the material world. As an objectophile turned artist I am mainly working with sculpture, photography and video - capturing the performative play with retro utensils on and in relation to my body. 

Luisa Hübner studied at the Schule Friedl Kubelka for Artistic Photography and since 2016 at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She took part in exhibitions such as CLITICAL TALK at Improper Walls and PARALLEL VIENNA art fair. Her photo series KITCHEN was shortlisted for the Belfast Photo Festival 2021, in the same year she was awarded by the Hoepfner Foundation. In 2022 Luisa received the Koschatzky Award Grant. Her work has been published in the FRESH EYES TALENTS 2021 Edition for new European photography. She is a member of the Kuenstlerhaus, Association of Austrian Fine Art. 

photo: © dieter decker

Giulia Seri

My work ranges from the randomness of the processes of life formation to the purely human point of view, where the figuration emphasizes the suffering over the transience of existence.

The expressive immediacy and essential language are supported by ancestral and mythological references, which highlight the deep roots of human thought on its own existence. The symbolism, with its archaic or childish tones, accentuates the communicative urgency, trying to make the works immediately perceptible on an emotional level. The works have an apotropaic function: they exorcise past and future ghosts, they are prayers, ex voto, sometimes spells to forget or evolve.

The watercolor, the delicacy of the materials such as bread and ceramics, the use of pastel tones contrast with the painful content, highlighting the fragility of the illusion, vain but necessary, that we can make sense of the pain of life and death.

Giulia Seri,

Rome, 1988

Lives and works in Florence

studies and professional experience

2017-2018 Printmaking teacher, il Bisonte Foundation for Graphic Art, Florence 2017 Printmaking Specialization, il Bisonte Foundation for Graphic Art, Florence 2016 Art Students League, NYC, USA

2014 Master degree in Biology at Florence University, 110/110

grants, recognitions and awards

2023 Medal of Arte dei Vasai della Nobile Contrada del Nicchio, Siena 2022 Invitation “Mirror- face to face”, Italy-Netherlands

2022 Finalist “Combat Prize”, Livorno

2022 Finalist “Brixton Art Prize”, London, United Kingdom

2021 Invitation “Biennale Internazionale di opere di carta”, Schio 2021 Finalist “Premio Nocivelli”, Brescia

2021 Jury recognition “Combat Prize”, Livorno

2021 Jury recognition “Premio Cramum”, Milano

2021 Jury recognition prize “Koschatzky Art Award”, Vienna, Austria

photo: © dieter decker