Walter Vopava

From the beginning, Walter Vopava has turned to a more silent and existential side of painting. He denies all the shine and splendour that painting can unfold. Vopava originally found his approach to painting through studies of nature. In his works of the 1980s, the artist still tried to find results through reality. His aim was never to focus on the absolute representation of reality, but instead to transform something or crystallize it out of the pretext of reality. Quite early he said goodbye to the subject, but without completely suppressing it from his pictures. In his works since 2000, Vopava has primarily been concerned with the construction of the pictorial space, but he counteracts a homogeneous three-dimensionality and avoids any association with the representational object. Vopava usually chooses the emergent, sometimes monumental upright format for his works, thus also avoiding the mental connection to landscape and horizon. Material and technique therefore play a subordinate role in his work, but are important to him in articulating his intention. They represent a product of the demand that the artist wants to realize with his work. Thus Vopava mostly works with acrylic on canvas, a very grateful combination from his point of view, which subordinates itself to this demand.