"HERE + SEA"

Born in the light of the south and the beauty of Carinthia

"Steep coast near Lipari with Vulcano" - this is what Harald Scheicher calls the oil painting from 2022, which tells of the light of the south & the preoccupation with a very specific section of the picture.(Bild: Harald Scheicher)

The painter and doctor Harald Scheicher, himself the grandson of the Lower Carinthian artist Werner Berg, is showing a selection of his latest oil paintings at the Stadtgalerie Wolfsberg under the title "HERE + SEA".

The sea glows like a jewel in lapis lazuli blue and blooming agaves on a distant cliff make you want more and immerse yourself in figurative travel and hiking impressions, which Harald Scheicher condenses into a hymn of praise to the beauty of the moment.

And so the latest oil paintings in purer tones - in contrast to the often dramatically staged content carriers of earlier years on a gray background - are pressed in the light of the south and painted on a white ground. This generates greater brightness and radiant luminosity, sometimes reminiscent of Austrian Color Expressionism.

Rinka from the Paulitschsattel.(Bild: Harald Scheicher)

"The paintings are always created outdoors"
The fact that the passionate artist, who has been painting since the age of 13, is the grandson of Werner Berg is also revealed to the eye in many a more or less obvious painting relationship. "The pictures are always created outdoors, directly in front of the motif, without any touch-ups in the studio," says the 65-year-old - for him a decisive process of image creation and "the formative reproduction of objects in the perceived world as an original process of human creativity."

This immediacy on location is probably also what gives the oppressively beautiful motifs of longing from Italy, Croatia and Carinthia that soulful authenticity that is a feast for the eyes until November 9 (Thu: 3 to 6 pm, Fri & Sat: 11 am to 4 pm).