Location: Austria
CULTURES VARY YET BLEND IN HARMONY - THIS INSIGHT HAS SHAPED ARTIST ERNESTINE FAUX AND IS EXPRESSED VISUALLY IN HER PAINTINGS
Ernestine Faux’s works can be found in highly recognized collections in Europe, Australia, Asia and the United States. Her art has played a role in numerous cooperative projects among international businesses: hotel chains, restaurants and large corporations have entrusted her with the task of creatively styling their business spaces in recent years. Spending decades on various continents interacting with a variety of cultures, she has developed her own unique yet universal colour language.
Recently Ernestine Faux has produced large-format outdoor installations that allow the viewer to intimately participate in the colours. These discs, embedded in natural outdoor and urban settings, can be approached from all sides, inviting the viewer to absorb the magnetizing colour they radiate and sense as it were its physical energy.
Born in Graz, AT, the freelance artist sought already in her early years to balance her interests between fashion design and the visual arts, so that her subsequent international career in the fashion industry shaped in part her work as an artist. Ernestine Faux spent more than 20 years in the Middle East and Asia before finally dedicating herself full-time in 1994 to her calling as an artist. In 1996 she returned to Austria and committed herself to the study of colour, light and sound.
Artist Ernestine Faux consciously perceives colour as a language of the emotions, not only perceived through the eyes but also penetrating body and spirit. This is in effect what makes Ernestine Faux’s work so unique: while experimenting with the contemplative power of colour, she engages with the vibrations emanating from it. On the threshold of her image space, the viewer is usually greeted by simple geometrical shapes, painted with greater precision in some cases and more softly and diffusely in others.
1958 I Born in Graz, Austria
1977 I Academy for Fashion & Art Hetzendorf – Vienna , Austria I Director Otto Liewehr)
Lived and worked 20 years in the Middle East, Africa and Asia
Since 2000 shares her living and working- time between Graz, Austria, USA and Bali Indonesia.
SOLO - EXHIBITIONS
2018 / MIR - Museum im Rathaus Gleisdorf / Gleisdorf / A
2017 / Künstlerpavillion / Frühjahrsmesse Graz / Graz / A
2013 / In the name of colour / St. Salvator Galerie / Graz / A
2012 / Meine farbräume / Mall Galerie / Krone Center Graz / A
2009 / Licht & Dunkel / BMF Kunstraum / Leibnitz / A
2011 / Über den Wolken / Flughafengalerie Graz Thalerhof / Graz / A
2008 / Klim Art Zonen III / Galerie Steiner / Wien / A
2008 / Klim Art Zonen II / Klinikum Galerie Foyer / Deutschlandsberg / A
2007 / Klim Art Zonen I / Galerie Weberhaus / Weiz / A
2006 / Aus der Ferne…/ Galerie MC. Marschalek / Wien / A
2006 / Form Farbe Klang / Steirisches Feuerwehrmuseum Kunst & Kultur / Groß Sankt Florian A
2005 / Galerie MC Marschalek / Wien / A
2001 / Ecksaal Galerie Joanneum, Graz, A
1999 / Impression Gallery, Ying & Yang, Sedona, CA / USA
SELECTED COMMISSIONED ARTWORK
2019 COCOON– COLOUR SCULPTURE– magenta red I Szent Andràs Kastely I HU
2019 FRAME – COLOUR SCULPTURE – safran I Public park I Feldkirchen by Graz I A
2019 CHROMATIC COLOUR DISK – safran I Public park I Feldkirchen by Graz I A
2017 SQUARES – red I Scheelen GmbH Institut for Managementdiagnostik Graz I A
2017 CHROMATIC COLOUR DISK – cadmium I Garten der Seele I Bernhard Haanl I A
2017 CROMATIC COLOUR DISK – green I Garten der Seele I Bernhard Haanl I Güssing I A
2013 FOUR COLOURS I Scheelen GmbH Institut for Managementdiagnostik Graz I A
2012 GREEN GATE I Bitepoets GmbH Software & App Developer Graz I A
2008 EARTH I Art collection I LKH Deutschlandsberg I Public Hospital I Styria I A
2006 PELEANGI I Art collection I Privat Medical Center Ragnitz I Graz I A
2006 MASMILLENIUM 1-5 I Tony Romas Restaurant I US Franchise I Bangkok / THAI
2005 CIRCLE I Die Brücke I Event Center I Vienna I A
2005 MELTING CONTRAST - orange 1 I CPK Restaurant I US Franchise I Singapore / SING
2005 MELTING CONTRAST - orange I CPK Restaurant I US Franchise I Kuala Lumpur I MAL
2005 LUMINOUS LIGHT 1 I CPK Restaurant I US Franchise I Kuala Lumpur I MAL
2004 LUMINOUS LIGHT 2 I CPK Restaurant I US Franchise I Restaurant I Shanghai I CHN
2004 KAMASUTRA I Tony Romas Restaurant I US Franchise I Shanghai I CHN
2003 HEART RHYTHM I CPK Restaurant I US Franchise I Hong Kong I CHN
2001 LOTUS CIRCLE I Die Brücke I Event Center I Vienna I A
1998 YESTERDAY & TOMORROW I Tony Romas Restaurant I US Franchise I Berlin I D
1997 CIRCLE OF LIGHT I Art collection I Privat Medical Center Hansa I Graz I A
1996 FORTUNATE BLESSINGS I Tony Romas Restaurant I US Franchise I Hong Kong I CHN
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017 / Lichträume / Artmark Galerie / Wien / A
2017 / Auktion 5 / Ressler Kunst Ausktion / Wien / A
2015 / Auf den zweiten Blick / Steirisches Feuerwehrmuseum „Kunst & Kultur“ / Groß Sankt Florian / A
2014 / Black / Artfactory Graz / Graz / A
2008 / Donna Mobile, Gleisdorf, A
2007 / Austrian Cultural Forum Bratislava / „Donna Mobile“ / SK
2006 / Kunsthaus Weiz / „S(t)ein oder nicht S(t)ein“ / Weiz / A
2005 / Austrian Foreign Trade Office Krakow / „Donna Mobile“ / PL
2004 / Austrian Cultural Forum Milano / „Donna Mobile“ / I Austrian Cultural Forum Bled / „Donna Mobile“ / SI
2004 / ORF (Austrian Television) Gallery Graz, „Donna Mobile“ / Graz / A
2003 / Austrian Cultural Forum Marburg, / „Donna Mobile“/ SI Künstlerhaus Graz / „Stmk. Werksbund Kunstverein“/ Kulturhauptstadt Graz 2003 / A
2002 / Telecomhaus Galerie Graz / „Stmk. Werksbund Kunstverein“/ A
1999 / Künstlerhaus Graz / „Stmk. Werksbund Kunstverein“ / A
1998 / Künstlerhaus Graz / „Stmk. Werksbund Kunstverein“ / A
1996 / Creative Gallery Wien / „Stmk. Werksbund Kunstverein“ / A
Just as the title confidently announces, the cycle focuses solely on the subject of colour and more precisely on its effect. The arena of this ‘spectacle’ is the square, the circle is its protagonist. All of the CHROMATICS paintings radiate with a matured light that could be construed as the embodiment of an inner light. It can equally be interpreted as the key to the
emotions and to a spiritual dimension. On this plane the artist’s intention coincides with Mark Rothko’s conception of the painting. For Rothko, colour merely an aid in achieving a higher goal – or, as he expressed it, an „instrument for eliciting a basic human emotion”.
200 x 200 xm, oil on canvas, 2016
oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm / 2016
Ernestine Faux’s - landscape colour interventions
There is a long tradition of creating and placing stone and metal sculptures within the landscape. To embellish an external area with three-dimensional colour plastics is a novelty in artistic expression, rare as well as innovative. The artist from Graz introduces us to her CHROMATIC COSMOGRAMS, which offer visual sensation and encourage discourse regarding colours and landscape.
Measuring up to three meters in diameter, the discs are made of coats of resin and are, in the majority of cases, painted in a monochromatic palette. From afar, the discs are perceived as colourful dots in the landscape, rapidly becoming an alluring visual point of reference, drawing us near to investigate further, until one feels as one with the colour in front of them.
Experiencing an “immersion into colour“, outdoors in natural lighting, allows the viewer to see the tints in all their purity which may well be the essence of the artist’s intention.
It takes time, which is very precious nowadays, to see the colours in the sculptural object. To witness the entire spectrum of a colour as seen in natural light is a sight that we cannot perceive in museums or galleries with their use of artificial lighting.
“To see colour, is to see life!“ – a term by Raimer Jochims, a fellow artist, that can certainly be understood more deeply during contemplation of Ernestine Faux’s Chromatic Cosmograms.
The positioning of sculptures within a landscape can be traced back to the monolithic age and the practice of “stone setting“. The stones would have been set in order to establish a far reaching relationship between the sky, the ground, the elements and the visible, as well as intangible forces within a landscape. This will strengthen, purify and invigorate the site, its surroundings and its dwellers.
By making her objects “colour – image” settings, Ernestine Faux is not only perpetuating this monolithic tradition, but also broadening it and bringing it in as a new form into the contemporary. Given that an image is literally positioned within a landscape, we are reminded of Paul Cezanne’s words which describe art as: “a harmony parallel with nature“.
CHROMATIC COLOUR DISK- CADMIUM ORANGE I 2017 I ø 300 cm x 6 cm I acrylic paint on fiberglass, wood, metal
CHROMATIC COLOUR DISK - SPECTRO CHROM 2018 I ø 190 cm x 6 cm I acrylic paint on fiberglass, wood, metal
3 D RELIEF, SOUND PORTALS, 80x80x10cm resin body, oil colour and 22 karat gold leaves, 2019
RELIEF body work, resin body, 22 karat gold leaves, oil, 1 piece-concave, 1 piece convex
“CHROMATICS- magenta”
“CHROMATICS turquoise ”
“DISK - cadmium orange”
“DISK - spectro chrom”
“SOUND PORTALS_gold/white_”
“SOUND PORTALS_bod_ FRONT_ gold/black”
