NATURE at Loft 8

with Frank Webster

Opening: May 7, 2015, 7pm
Duration: May 8–June 21, 2015
Loft 8, Vienna, AT

Sensing Architecture

Fabian Patzak and Frank Webster exhibit related yet distinct approaches to their respective urban environments. Patzak’s tightly composed oil paintings depict organized versions of actual buildings in a rather muted palate that have been reduced to their essence. The subjects of his New York-based colleague, on the other hand, consist of shadows of buildings against gleaming dawn or dusk red skies with painted treetop silhouettes. The paintings on exhibition offer viewers entry to the heretofore under acknowledged beauty of European modernist buildings and seemingly abandoned locations in New York. Both Patzak and Webster wander their cities on the lookout for motifs and with a penchant for the urban fringe. A hidden socio-critical undertone lies within the oeuvres of both artists, and is all the more effective for its subtlety. Urbanism is elevated to an entirely new level through painting, these works can be seen as swan songs for perhaps soon-to-vanish facets of our modern habitat the metropolis.

Wolfgang Pichler