Großes Boot / great boat Painting

Born in 1949 in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Walkensteiner studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he attended the painting class of Max Weiler. Similarly to his meister, the young artist, who, at the age of 26 - along with Joseph Beuys - took part in the Venice Biennale, began by doing abstract painting of nature, later doing informalist painting, “But this was too vague and undefined for me.“ Nevertheless, he continued to have interest in informalist drawing and flat, abstract painting - if only as far as the background and the undercoat were concerned. “I like this approach, which allows me to let myself run free in the background in an informailst way, virtually without plan, even if I already have the basic composition in my head. I get completely into it, I want to know what I’m doing and to be in control of what I’m doing. I want to keep myself in the spirit, so every once in a while I also have to make it difficult for myself.“