The painter and graphic artist Hans Weigand has always lived a cross-disciplinary concept of art - in the 1980s he played guitar in the Viennese artist band PAS PARAVANT and formed the duo AVOI-DANCE with Heimo Zobernig.

In the 1990s, Weigand lived in Los Angeles, immersed himself in the surf-punk culture of the American West Coast, and dealt with socio-political issues. In 1999 he realized the installation Life / Boat with Raymond Pettibon and Jason Rhoades at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles. He is a border crosser between fine and applied arts, reacting to phenomena of everyday life, which he takes to absurdity in utopian-looking scenarios. In his work, contemporary motifs collide with images of old masters in traditional techniques such as woodcut. He works with classical printing blocks, coloring with watercolors and ink. It is not an ideal world that he shows, it is war and destruction, the apocalypse. His figure of the surfer, for example, stands for freedom as well as audacity and doom. These daring protagonists from the 2022 series "Falling Surfer" are reminiscent of comic figures and the formal language of pop culture. They try to escape the end of the world. In vain - failure and downfall are recurring themes in Weigand's work.

Born in Hall in Tyrol, Hans Weigand now lives and works in Vienna and in St. Martin an der Raab in Burgenland. From 1978 to 1983 he studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with Oswald Oberhuber. His work can be seen in international solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums; in 2022, the ALBERTINA Vienna dedicated a highly acclaimed special exhibition to him.

Fotocredit: H. Weigand, Bildrecht 2023, Wien