about iris andraschek
The rituals of diverse communities, alternative life models, nature, rural areas, rural societies and their regulations are recurring issues in Iris Andraschek’s artistic work. She deals with transitions between privacy and publicness, the everyday and enactment, as well as with the borderlines between reality and fiction in images constructed by the media. For presenting her photographs and drawing in context- and site-specific installations, in exhibitions or in public space, Andraschek designs special displays and furniture like photo-text-books or so-called ‘photo houses’, for instance.
Her photo portraits often feature a remarkable intensity. This is not least the result of the – one could almost say ‘conspirational’ – collaboration between the artist and the protagonists of her photographs. Their lives are frequently situated on the fringes, in both a geographical and social sense. Depicted in their familiar environments, the portrayed appear natural and at ease. At the same time, the photographs exude a sense of fragility that emphasises the intimacy of the situation, and sometimes transforms it in a surreal way.
In recent projects for public space, which she has realized in form of mosaics and works inlaid in the terrain, Andraschek has focussed on recollection history and female representation.
Iris Andraschek was born in Horn, Lower Austria, in 1963. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Supplementary studies in fresco painting at the scuola degli arti ornamentali in Rome and Bolzano. Artist residencies in Durham, Ontario (2002), New York (2010), Woodside, CA (2012), Istanbul (2015) and Chongquinq, China (2017). Andraschek lives and works in Vienna and Mödring, Lower Austria.
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solo exhibitions
Iris Andraschek Hubert Lobnig. Empfindliches Gleichgewicht, MMKK, Klagenfurt, A (2018-2019), Sekundäre Wildnis, Kunsthaus Wien, A (2017 ), Ordinaire Blau, Galerie Raum mit Licht, Vienna, A (2016), Where to Draw the Line, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, A (2013 ), Foto Andraschek & Töchter, Kunstraum Goethestrasse xtd, Linz, A (2013), Passion of the Real, Semperdepot Vienna, A (2012), Private Property, Durham Art Gallery, CA (2002), Iris Andraschek, Galerie 5020, Salzburg, A (2000)
group exhibitions
Über Leben am Land, Kunsthaus Wien, A (2019), Sehnsuchtsräume, Landesgalerie Niederösterrreich, Krems, A (2019), Glaube Liebe Hoffnung, Kunsthaus Graz, A (2018), Diversity of Modernity, LP Art Space, Organhouse, Chongquinq, CHN (2018), Pieces of Water, Kunsthalle Göppingen, DE (2016), Rabenmütter, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, A (2015)
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projects in public space
Memorial für Frauen im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus, Salzburg, A (2019), I Love You, Installation Baierbrunnerstrasse, München, DE (2017), Tell these people who I am, Vienna, A (2011), Turnertempel – Erinnerungsort, Vienna, A (2011, with Hubert Lobnig), The muse has had it!, University of Vienna, A (2009/10)