Günther Holler-Schuster, Universalmuseum Joanneum, about Winter Journey:
The new paintings by ever-travelling Hubert Schmalix are, as in the past, determined by ostensible contradictions. Tight rows of geometrically aligned houses present themselves in bright colours – bleached from the sun or lightly covered in snow. With Schmalix, emptiness is never oppressive. The formed spaces are painterly dreams. Reality is kept at bay. The pictorial, on the other hand, is closer, creating a new substantiveness. The vegetative becomes ornamental. Density replaces colourfulness. It may seem obvious, but Schmalix is not concerned with narratives. It is the painterly, the pictorial, that engenders connectedness – or familiarity – and, at the same time, distance.
Helmut Reinisch has accompanied Schmalix“ development throughout the artist-s rise to one of the greats of contemporary painting. Today, Schmalix, who lives and works in Los Angeles and Vienna, is one of the international figureheads of current Austrian art.
Helmut Reinisch: „What fascinates me is that behind Hubert Schmalix“ seemingly cool themes and „surfaces“, there often lies an immense sensibility.“
