Final Project

For my final project I was planning to continue to experiment with collage and with layering painted elements over photographs. I was inspired by the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists, particularly Franz Kline's, Lehigh V Span, from 1960 with its broad and decisive brushstrokes and the layering of images and paint in the combines of Robert Rauschenberg. I took a series of shots of the exterior and interior of my favorite church in Austria, the neo-Gothic Votivkirche, with its stunning interiors, especially the transept, pulpit and stained glass windows. I scanned images of broad brushstrokes and washes that I did in watercolor for this purpose and layered and "painted" those onto the images in Photoshop. The resulting photographic "paintings" explore the close relationship between the two media and the question if and how the painted elements alter the meaning of the series.

I was drawn to transfer x-shaped forms onto the images which express my highly ambivalent feelings about the Catholic faith. I was brought up in Catholic Austria and while I was undoubtedly shaped by my childhood education (I was taught by nuns in grade school) I also started to question the teachings at a very early age. I am drawn to spiritual spaces such as this beautiful church but at the same time I am repulsed by the absolute power of the religious system behind it, especially in a historical context. The Votivkirche was built in 1879 as an offering to the church by Emperor Franz Joseph who had just escaped an assassination attempt by a Hungarian nationalist. So the church embodies both the then-absolute power of the Catholic church and that of the monarch.
I see the series as a journey from the train station (with the Votivkirche visible in the background) to the church and through its interiors ending in a final shot of the exterior. For me it was a journey through time and history and let me explore my ambivalent feelings towards my home country.