EIKO GRÖSCHL

The figures that Eiko Gröschl portrays are silhouetted, appearing as incomplete and desolate. The figures have been made with smeared pastel markings, depicting tapering limbs belonging to slightly opaque bodies. The comforts and the displeasures of daily life are highlighted in wistful and fleeting moments such as in “Sleepy Walk” where a figure sits alone on a bed and gazes at something unknown. Two trucks during the night in “Am Weg gesehen,” or a dark figure that is dwarfed by a large tree in “Lacken, Reflektion” imply a sense of alienation that looms in the atmosphere of each painting like a stalking shadow. The purposeful positioning of the figures on the fringes of the painting and the obscuring of individual identities heightens the palpable auras of loneliness and isolation. An optimistic gloominess, emotive while ruthlessly exposed, is embedded in his portrayal of existentialist longing, both hypnagogic and nostalgic.

While simultaneously treating his motifs with a palpable sensitivity for moods and emotions, Eiko Gröschl is an artist that treats the canvas with a sensibility for its material, such as when he lets raw canvas peek through the paint. At times, the figures and rural fields of grass recede or meld together, allowing the materials to come into focus. These mercurial landscapes are saturated with cold blue and grey tones giving a suggestion to fog, wind, and changing sky.