“Nothing is as it seems, everything can change, from one second to the next.”
Born in Vienna in 1986, Adrian Szaal, who has been a freelance artist since 2004, is currently living and working in Berndorf in Lower Austria.
Szaal, whose works of art have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and who has already taken part in international art fairs and art symposia, is a graduate of Christian Ludwig Attersee’s master class.
His words allude to the fact that, technically, stylistically and in form and content, ambiguity has been raised to the level of a design principle within his body of work.
Although looking at Szaal’s paintings a set of different associations, most prominently with the art informel, may arise and even appear plausible, due to his brush-stroke, his expressive painterly gesture, on a closer examination one notices, that he never entirely forgoes the figurative element.
Using different painting tools on a variety of
image carriers, primarily applying the self-designed, newly invented “free colour” technique, mostly in acrylic, the artist plays with the specific characteristics of the medium of painting as well as photography.
In a consciously directed process of exploring the physical and psychological capabilities and constraints of the visual perception apparatus, which exerts decisive influence, if not determining every aspect of the art work at all levels, and during which Szaal passionately pushes the envelope, light itself as a medium plays a key role: in the creative act and process of looking, the experience of the artworks is constantly updated by dint of the interaction of the principles and effects of additive and subtractive colour mixing.
