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EXPRESSIVITY, COLOURISTIC POWER AND FIGURATIVE STRENGTH
About the painterly work of Michael Vonbank

Michael Vonbank has a rare expressionistic strength in his figurative paintings. Even his early work is also of a striking painterly quality that strongly interconnects his figurative elements. Vonbank's works depict grotesques; they are very ex plosive, manic subjects that develop primarily through the power of colour. Here, Michael Vonbank stands in the tradition of those artistic movements, such as Neo-Expressionism, the Cobra Group or Dubuffet, which are concerned with archaic values, with originality, with the original power of colour, signs and artistic creation.

This expressive power, this charged, strong wildness of Michael Vonbank's pictorial works runs through his entire oeuvre. Expressiveness, colouristic power and figurative strength characterise his work. The enormous painterly force of his pictures is one of the outstanding qualities of his work.

The power, spontaneity and uncompromisingness that characterise Vonbank's artistic work run as a thread through his bio graphy. He abandoned a successful law degree to devote himself entirely to art as a draughtsman and man of letters. He makes a living as a museum attendant and kitchen assistant before he is admitted to Christian Ludwig Attersee's master class at the University of Applied Arts and completes his studies with distinction in a minimum of time. He was awarded the CA Prize of the Austrian Graphic Design Competition, and for his diploma thesis he received the Prize of the Province of Tyrol.

His early work as a painter was already characterised by a high degree of drama and a strong sense for colour tones. The motifs of his large-format oil paintings follow on from his early drawings. Dense tangles of intertwined creatures grow into the picture like exotic plants, grotesques and chimeras interact in permanent transformation between worlds.

With the change to acrylic painting, Michael Vonbank's painting becomes more two-dimensional and graphic, his motifs becomemore emblematic and in their reduction are reminiscent of ciphers, repeating abbreviations that refer to further meanings. The dramatic narrative force of Michael Vonbank's painting, however, remains unbroken. Narrative-dense, colourful paintings alternate with a series of works in shades of black, white and grey that show archaic, dramatic beings.

The paintings of the late period are wilde more theatrical and experimental. Michael Vonbank, painter and man of letters, is now working on a series of literary typefaces. The motifs of his painting, reduced and focussed on essential statements, are now partly reminiscent of caricatures. This caricaturesque moment further develops the theatrical aspect in Michael Vonbank's painting. The high drama and the enormously sensitive sense of colour in his powerful painting are among the outstanding qualities of his work.

This text was published in the catalog "Michael Vonbank. Demon Theatre. Works 1986 - 2015. An Overview" Edited by Beate Sprenger with texts by Christian Ludwig Attersee, Daniela Gregori, Lucas Gehrmann, Anton Herzl, Margareta Sandhofer, Beate Sprenger, Florian Steininger, Michael Vonbank and Vitus Weh. Verlag fuer moderne Kunst, Wien 2022 ISBN: 978-3-9035-7269-9