Franco Kappl studied in the 1980s with Arnulf Rainer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He is a painter for the sake of painting. This results in an abstract basic structure. The colour is not subject to any formal or figurative order, the square appears abstractly designed. However, Kappl's concept of abstraction includes moments of the natural. Pictures are created parallel to a classical landscape representation. Kappl filters elementary qualities such as space, its atmosphere and the play of light and shadow from the landscape. Chromatic tones such as the primary colors sometimes flash out of the subdued color zones, but they blend with them more than they would gain the upper hand in the visual effect of the overall picture appearance.

In general, his pictures present themselves in a restrained and unobtrusive atmosphere. Massive effects are whitewashed by sensitive painterly nuances and spatially illusionistic picture areas. The paintings appear worn, monumental, similar to the sublime mood of a passing bad weather front from which bright sunspots seem to break through gently. Creamy white tones overlay dense painterly zones. (Florian Steininger)

Fotocredit: © Roland Krauss