ANDREAS WERNER

In his drawings, Andreas Werner uses elements of classical as well as fictional architecture, landscape and outer space. He confronts complex futuristic aesthetics with elements of classical architecture.

In his work, architecture has repeatedly mutated into machines and from machines into robots, some with human features. In his exhibition Galaktal at the Kunsthalle Krems, for example, he showed ‘Morphe’ made up of humans and machines using the language of architecture. In his new series, these fusions partly dissolve again and the narrative of the individual works becomes clearer. What happens when man and machine merge? Is it a symbol of identity and beauty in a digital era—dark and promising at the same time? Human myths such as the narration about Golem and Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein”, which tell of control and perfection in a complex world, stand side by side here with Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto_, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never filmed_ Dune_, Stanislaw Lem’s S_olaris_, Fritz Lang’s_ Metropolis_and even pop culture films such as_ Blade Runner_and_ Mad Max_. The motifs revolve around structures such as machines, laboratories, robots and cyborgs on the one hand and mythical figures and deities on the other. A clear classification is difficult, but we can nevertheless read the drawings. They play with a vocabulary of forms that is familiar to us and surrounds us. (from a statement by the artist)_

Andreas Werner (born 1984 in Merseburg an der Saale, lives and works in Vienna and Unterolberndorf) Andreas Werner studied Fine Arts with Sigbert Schenk at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from 2004 to 2007 and Fine Arts and printmaking techniques with Gunter Damisch at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and from 2007 to 2012, where he received his diploma with distinction in 2012. In 2016, he was awarded the Recognition Prize for Fine Arts, the Culture Prize of the Province of Lower Austria and the MUSA Prize for Young Art of the City of Vienna. He was awarded the State Scholarship of Saxony-Anhalt in 2017. In 2022 Andreas Werner received the STRABAG Artaward International and he is one of the winners of the 38th ‘Österreichischer Grafikpreis’ 2023. His works are represented in numerous collections, including those of the City of Vienna, the Province of Lower Austria, the Republic of Austria (Belvedere 21), the Universalmuseum Joanneum / Neue Galerie Graz and the Kupferstichkabinett of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneve, Switzerland