Franz Stefan Kohl

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The works by Franz Stefan Kohl impress by their distinguished and gentle elegance, their inner strain and their manual perfection.

Painted on raw, non-pretreated canvas mounted ultraplainly on a support, his works display tiny geometric lines and raster which are orchestrated in a rhythmical fashion forming three dimensionally appeared networks and structures. Minimal variatons within the primary structures, some by color others in form, as well as smooth over- and underlaid colered fields lead to further increase the visual tension of the structured body. Others are characterized in an inverse pattern by large scale geometric forms on the foreground which are balanced out by thin lamellar inner structures.

On first impression the works seem to imply a strictly calculated and planed mathematical-geometrical construction. Even so, the process of working often starts with a purely gestical and more randomly application of lines which then become expanded into different forms and assembled into networks in a highly detailed and elaborative manner. The opitical interplay between these single forms and lines results into a dynamic and vibrating room meshwork which oscillates between their micro-and macrostructures. This interplay is balanced out in such a sensitive way that it induces a harmonic reposing all over expression.

This pictorial transformation of auditive impulses goes back to the intensive engagement with the medium of music which for years served as the area Franz Stefan Kohl was working in. Questions attributed to synphony such as for rhythm and dynamics, sonance and dissonance, or for tension and unfolding are all part of the visual interpretation of sound in Franz Stefan Kohl works.

Franz Stefan Kohl, born 1959 in Tulin, Austria, spend over 10 years as an entrepreneur in the music business before his interest and activities more and more switch into visual arts. His first solo exhibition goes back to the year 2001. Since then his works were shown in multiple solo- and group exhibition as well as museum shows such as the Landesgalerie Burgenland in Eisenstadt Austria. Several of his painting belong to the Liaunig collection and Museum in Neuhaus, Austria.