Bakerhouse Gallery
Graz / Berlin

Kowalski

From soccer to art. As Kowalski, Wolfgang Mair processes moments of pop culture and emotionally links them with narratives.
Show Artworks

Biography

The artist and former national soccer team player Wolfgang Mair (*17.02.1980) was born in Lienz in East Tyrol and publishes his work under the pseudonym Kowalski. The autodidact has, during his 16-year professional career, among other things, completed a graphic and design training in Salzburg. In Kowalski's painting, paper surfaces or canvases are places where contradictions, social criticism and the security thinking of our socio-cultural fabric are deliberately placed before the eyes. In the works, events and familiar moments from the media and pop culture can be seen, which have a humorous effect through mask-like, almost satirizing exaggeration and at the same time make you think.

Formal, purely visual things are linked mentally or emotionally. Like a novel, a narrative.As in a narrative, however, a picture also creates limits, restricts what we can add. Kowalski also always works on the backs of his works - with sketches, collages, mind games or just plain facts about his main work. In this way he creates another level for the viewer and gives an even deeper insight into his world of thoughts.