Luisa Kasalicky Biography

Kasalicky studied at the Glasfachschule (Glass Art Academy) Kramsach, Tyrol, Austria, from 1996 to 1998 and painting at the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) Vienna with Gunter Damisch 1998–2004.

Luisa Kasalicky creates works that are located at the intersection of installation, painting, and sculpture and combine constructivist stylistic elements with baroque fixtures. Her narrative arrangements of simple forms are reminiscent of theatre stage sets and can be understood as reactions to the media homogenisation of visual image production in photography and film today. Kasalicky strives to do justice to the everyday raw materials and building stuffs–like plastic foam, bitumen panels, wood, tiles, and synthetic carpets–that she uses. On the one hand, these materials relate to her childhood and are cultural and anthropological relics from the 1970s and ’80s. On the other hand, they stress tactile qualities and possess a painterly value based on their particular colour, texture, and materiality. Her motifs, some of which are expansive, express a strong desire for a clear language of form that upholds a baroque tendency toward the sublime, despite the heaviness of the materials used. Kasalicky also integrates the creative potential and artisanal value of ornaments into her working world. Kasalicky’s installations playfully indulge in narration, staging painting as baroque theatrical backdrops and reflecting on the sensual immediacy of conscious perception. Like her installation pieces, her traditional tempera panel paintings created in her studio also narratively weave together the individual motifs in the pictorial space. (Anja Werkl)

Kasalicky has had solo exhibitions at venues such as the Lentos Museum, Linz, Austria; Kunstraum Burgkapelle -Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Klagenfurt, Austria; House of Arts - Galerie G99, Brno, Czech Republic; and BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna, Austria.

Kasalicky was awarded the Otto Mauer Prize in 2013.