ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a German artist who lives and works in Austria.
When I was young, I spent some time in New York where I got to know the German artist Salome, an artist from the art movement, The New Wild (die Neue Wilde).
In the 1980s, Salome’s group was considered a counter-movement to prevailing conceptual art scene during which they shifted to painting. Needless to say, I was infected by the spontaneous and expressive elements of the Neue Wilde at a young age.
I currently work and live in Dornbirn and Schwarzenberg, Austria.
I have been awarded with various Art Prizes. Numerous exhibitions including museums have featured my work in the past.
My works are in different Art Collections in Germany, Austria, Swiss and USA.
The Paintings are mostly large format oil- and acrylic paintings which are simultaneously realistic and alienating. Shapes and contours are blurred, out of focus, distorted or alienated. However, the realistic impression is retained and is heightened by a dynamic color composition.
My switch to representational painting may have been impacted by my prior work as Designer, or be interpreted as a counter-movement to the still prevalent conceptual art genre.
Portraits and depictions of women play a vital role in my work.
Today i have created a signature style encompassing bands of pigment that alternate between static, thick marks and blurred, flowing sweeps. The human figure remains at the core of my explorations, courting the viewer's memories, and leaving him with a vague gnawing that he has missed something lying just beneath the surface. Perception and distortion are prominent and powerful traits of my studio practice.
A heady mix of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and 21st century existentialism, my work exposes the intimate and uncanny. The distinctive palette touches on the nerve of vulnerability, desire and control. The subject matter, however, remains shadowy - a tension between abstraction and distorted reality, a conflict between the self and the void.
The painting approaches the viewer, expressively abstract, yet based on a clear object. Vital brushwork features appear increasingly free in front of the surface as tension builds up in the juxtaposition of density and looseness, intensity and silence.
The works are Iconic paintings which waver between faded abstraction, progression and figuration. Working in a traditional and timeless realm. Before the surface dries, I treat it to reveal a distorted image stopped in time and lost in space.
Painting a realistic picture, i deconstruct it, leaving in its wake traces of what was. Thus what ever remains in the present is a single
transient, but captive moment.
Despite the abundance of associations that inevitably arise in all works, mine are primarily characterized by an emotional, gestural language of forms. Perhaps this is the reason why my works polarize.
CURATORS WORD
SIGNATURE BLURRED EXPRESSIONISM STYLE
The works are a modern abstraction of the human form.
Producing fragmented paintings that resemble emptiness in their depiction, he explores movement, the passage of time, and the human figure.
His haunting, phantasmatic paintings are haunting - you can almost hear the crackling of static electricity - and his subjects are intimately and emotionally depicted.
Taking inspiration from Rembrandt, Kopplstätter is a master at manipulating light, which in turn lends a baroque touch to his contemporary works.
A signature style that includes bands of pigment alternating between static, bold markings and blurry, flowing sweeps.
The human figure is central to his explorations, courting the viewer's memories and leaving them with a vague feeling that they've missed something that lies just beneath the surface.
PURPLE POP ART STYLE
The artist reveals the intimate and the uncanny in an intoxicating mixture of voyeurism, exhibitionism and 21st-century existentialism.
With a shock of garish colors contrasting with delicate flesh tones, Kopplstätter's distinctive palette hits the nerve of vulnerability, desire and control.
However, the theme remains shadowy - a tension between abstraction and distorted reality, a conflict between the self and the void.