Artworks from Michaela Steinacher

Charismatic portrait painting with depth and charisma

The artist Michaela Steinacher (born 1972), who lives in Klausen - Leopoldsdorf near Vienna, has been studying with various renowned artists in Austria since 2003. She is a member of the Baden artists' association ASPEKT. With her active participation in the cultural processes taking place there, she, along with other protagonists, has the effect of communicating the visual arts of the present to a broad public.

Faces in which individuality shines forth

In her early creative phase, her works were still characterised as very versatile, ranging from pure abstraction to spontaneous realism. The artist seemed to be searching for herself for a long time. Thus, she felt very familiar with predominantly non-objective representations, whereas today she has largely devoted herself to portrait painting. Her current works show oversized faces with impressive eye play. The face serves as a tableau for the aspects hidden in the facial expression. It is the door or the entrance to the whole person. The focus of her portraits is always on the eyes, which are worked out quite realistically, while the parts of the face seem more abstract, caused by modelling, broad brushstrokes, and thus allow the essential - the play of the eyes - to emerge. Important for the correct understanding are the commenting titles in which inner attitudes between sadness, devotion, enthusiasm, joy and defiance are made visible. Identity is always preserved, even if each painting radiates a certain anonymity. Often they are young, beautiful, "dynamic" women's faces on which the spectacle of life is wonderfully reproduced. The colours in which the faces and backgrounds are kept stand for emotions that are reflected under these titles.

Steinacher's great gift is a psychologically grounded empathy and its bravura translation into the pictorial, especially as the larger-than-life face surpasses reality. In her painting technique, Michaela Steinacher prefers acrylic paints, which dry quickly and can be easily applied in several layers. Through the glaze or also in the impasto application of paint, a certain depth and three-dimensionality is created, into which the viewer can penetrate at will, and his or her own play and individual communication with the eyes take place in the picture.

Michaela's art is meant to trigger moods and sensitivities, it is meant to touch, to express the unspeakable and to evoke mental unities in the viewer. Her working method is characterised by certain orders, which, however, only emerge piece by piece from initial and random chaos. In the process, the colourfully expressive centre opens up into a free space that gives the viewer the opportunity to continue thinking about the pictorial idea himself.

Reduced Simplicity

Human expression, dynamics and modification up to abstraction in symbiosis are the central elements of her work, which she habitually depicts with expressive colours. Michaela Steinacher discovered a significant artistic talent at an early age. She has always appreciated the versatility of her talent. She succeeds in paying significant attention to her artistic abilities. She knows for herself that it is not the neutral, emotionally distanced depiction, but the subjective and intuitive view of each individual that is decisive for a willing perception of the environment. Her art, she says herself, "happens out of everyday life - like snapshots from everyday life". At the same time, her interpretations of a motif exude striking liveliness through a mixture of reduced simplicity and abstract expressionism.

The Klausen artist also pushes abstract painting in numerous projects. She is particularly fascinated by the fact that her pictorial language has little or no reference to any concrete object. For this reason, she became involved in the joint project "abstract : constructivist : three-dimensional" in September 2013, an attempt with painting, graphic art, printmaking, photography and object to limit herself to sounds of form and colour, intra-pictorial references and contrasts.

Exhibitions (excerpt)

2004: Gallery representation Schlossgalerie, Bad Fischau
2004: Gallery representation Mondsee Gallery, Austria
2006: Gallery representation Galerie Bast - Art, Vienna (AT)
2008: Solo exhibition Trivium Investment, Vienna (AT)
2013: Joint project by <kunstaspekt> in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts, temporary installation.
2013: Collective exhibition "abstract : constructivist : three-dimensional", Baden (Lower Austria)
2014: Solo exhibition "Faces and More", Galerie Steiner, 1st district Vienna (AT)
2014: Collective exhibition "STEIN", Schloss Lichtenstein, Lower Austria
2014: "storyteller", House of Art, Baden (AT)
2015: Group exhibition, Landsteiner Industrieviertelfestival
2015: Annual exhibition <kunstaspekt> at the grenzART gallery, Hollabrunn (AT)
2016: Art fair NEUE ArT16, Dresden
2016: Exhibition "paperworks" Galerie im Turm,
2018: Solo exhibition Blickfang, Gallery Abstrakte Momente, Dresden (D)
2019: Art fair NEUE ArT19, Dresden