Artist focus: four by August Walla

aFairy tale
"God Devil Walla"

August Walla
TABAKBAUM.?
Bleistift
1977
30 x 40 cm

(jpg from Galerie Altnöder, © Haus der Künstler, Gugging)

August Walla
Fire House, 1999
Pencil, colored pencil and ballpoint pen on white wove paper
Signed, upper right, and inscribed throughout. Extensively inscribed in colored pencil, verso
17 3/8" x 24 5/8" (44.1 x 62.5 cm)
G 99-246



August Walla’s paintings and drawings show many affinities to contemporary art in his use of bold, striking imagery and aggressively rendered forms, signs, and symbols.

He was very keen on language, and foreign words and phrases had a significant and magical meaning to him.

Painter, photographer and calligrapher August Walla has created his own mythology of invented creatures, gods, signs, words and languages. The symbols and figures of his polytheistic universe can be found throughout his work. August Walla is particularly known for his method of intervening directly in his environment, leaving his mark everywhere. In projecting a personal symbolism on his surroundings, particularly on functional elements, August Walla gives them an autonomy and life of their own.

August Walla has documented the result of his land art interventions and installations, collecting them in a sort of personal photographic journal. Over time, this journal has grown to be an accurate and lively reflection of the continuum of his work. Dazibao is showing a section of this photographic journal, covering the period between 1980 to 1983.

Not only do the works of August Walla offer us a singular language and an unusual world view, but they question the very notion of creation, the nature of the artistic act.

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Born in 1936, August Walla has lived in the Gugging artists’ residence since 1983. The house, located near Vienna in Austria and founded in 1981 by the psychiatrist Leo Navratil, harbours several well-known artists of the Art Brut movement, of whom August Walla is one of the more versatile representatives. His work has been shown in a number of major European and American museums, and has greatly influenced many artists, including Julian Shnabel.

Walla died of cancer in July, 2001 at the age of sixty-five.

see also

Outsider Artist August Walla http://www.jsaslowgallery.com/artists/walla/in

http://www.dazibao-photo.org/en/prog_2000_1999_com2.html

Link: http://www.jsaslowgallery.com/artists/walla/index.html

http://www.petulloartcollection.com/artistprofile.asp?refArtistID=51