The group exhibition "Welle - Val - Wave"

The group exhibition of the members of the Atrium et Arte art association entitled Val-Welle-Wave consists of works by seven Austrian artists, within the eponymous project /symposium on the phenomenon of waves and their shapes viewed in the context of individual artistic connotations, initiated in late summer 2021. This is not the first meeting of artists with the island because they have been working on Lošinj for several years. Fascination with two natural elements, the island (soil) and the sea that surrounds it, i.e. the water that defines and shapes it as it was in the beginning and the wave as the initiator of change, resulted in this exceptional art exhibition.

 What lies behind a personal understanding of the wave?

The first image of the wave is associated with the movement of the sea surface, but in the artistic context it connotes in a series of subjective expressions. The thematization of the power of the wave is so symbolically strong and colourful that it has become a recognizable metaphor that depicts many situations from life. It conveys an expressive message that vividly depicts extraordinary events, not only in artistic but also in everyday communication context. In the spectrum of many of its realizations - as a wave of emotions, a wave of socio-political or climate changes, a heat wave, a pandemic corona wave ... its connotative layer of meaning points to any impending force or event that cannot be clearly estimated, points to ups and downs. refractions and reflections, attenuation and re-emergence, to the uncontrolled force of nature. Hokusai’s famous work Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, is a monumental polychrome woodblock print. As an uncontrollable force, it points to the context of inner energy, distinctive personality, and great spiritual strength. As a force emanating from water, it is capable of destroying, cleansing, but also rebuilding everything. In the derived spectrum of meaning, it has the power of healing and it eliminates everything that upsets, hurts and destabilizes us; it brings us back to normal. It is a symbol of constant life movement, a combination of one unpredictable constant.

 The authors, aware of their observations, introspectively and meditatively see in the waves a reflection of their own inner energy from which their works of art emerge. The creative media seemed to find artists just as much as artists perceived visual and auditory forms. It is a specific position, deeply experienced and expressed from the inside. Even the media in which they work: stone, wood, sand, feathers, paper, acrylic, canvas, photography and music have no dominant role. In this relationship, the crucial thing is the feeling of unpreparedness within the essential, the feeling of timelessness that you simply must record. The authors try to attract the observer to the spontaneous mental and emotional reception of their works, with which the encounter is already so tempting "at first" that the eye immediately starts a concrete game with wave motifs.

 The visual and auditory forms that the authors address to the audience in this exhibition range from drawings, through sculpture, installations, photography to the creation of a musical work, a composition that will be premiered at the opening.

We will agree that each of the artists presented has their own conception of the wave and there is no arguing about it. Of course, the common idea of ​​the author of the exhibition is to convey to visitors the enthusiasm for the waves, admiration for the sea and its faces that change from moment to moment and the impression that we can experience it in a new, different way.

 The creators of this honest and expertly tailored art story are : Gerlinde Thuma, Kurt Straznicky, Luise Kloos, Reinhard Süss, Alfred Graf, Silvia Maria Grossmann and Fridolin Welte.

  Zrinka Ettinger Starčić

Translation: Bernard Solis