Markus Prachensky

Biography

The artist Markus Prachensky, born in Innsbruck in 1932, is considered one of the leading figures of the Austrian avant-garde. Initially strictly geometric and influenced by Piet Mondrian, Prachensky developed his typical visual language from 1956. In the same year, together with Wolfgang Hollegha, Josef Mikl and Arnulf Rainer, he founded the "St. Stephan" artist group, whose main sponsor is the well-known art historian Monsignor Otto Mauer.

A little later, in 1959, the "Peinture liquide" premiered at the Theater am Fleischmarkt in Vienna, in which Prachensky poured several hundred liters of red paint over an upright wall. Keeping with the formal expression, the artist has only used a vehement, compelling red for years.

Later he expanded the painting palette to include the colors green, violet, black-brown and yellow. The basic elements of many of his pictures are upright bars with layers of color laid across them. Prachensky creates cyclic sequences of images, which he first names after the places where they were created, and later with places connected to him by memories.