drawings and works on paper
In Karl Karner's artistic practice, drawing serves as a counterpoint to the protracted, physically demanding processes of his sculptural work. With an expressive line, vibrant coloration, and a fluid interplay between figuration and abstraction, emotionally charged image fields emerge—like snapshots of an inner dialogue.
Fragmentary texts repeatedly interrupt the pictorial surface—so-called “wisdoms,” inspired by rural proverbs from Karner’s Styrian homeland. Yet rather than nostalgic echoes, they appear as critically ironic commentaries on the present: at times enigmatic or ambivalent, at others provocatively pointed.
Sculptural impulses also permeate the series. Karner incorporates materials such as silicone or wax to intervene in the paper’s surface, lending the works a tactile presence. In his hands, drawing becomes a resonance space—an open structure where language, image, and material meet, contradict, and intertwine.
