Johanna Kandl

For many years, the artist has been exploring issues of painting and social themes, particularly relating to economics and capitalism. Before putting brush to canvas, she engages in intense research, often in collaboration with her husband, the artist Helmut Kandl. Johanna Kandl's interest is devoted to what is tangible, detailed, precise. In her current works she literally studies the essence of painting and explores its basic materials such as turpentine, gum arabic, mastic, pearl glue or linseed oil, investigating their material qualities and production aspects. In the process, Kandl brings to light global economic and cultural relationships, addresses production conditions and the people involved, but also the history of the material. Her research took the artist to many places, including the Vienna Basin where she found the turpentine trees (Pinus nigra austriaca), to mastic cultivation areas on the Greek island of Chios and to areas in Africa where the gum-arabic tree (Acacia senegal) is harvested. Exhibition: Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg , Vienna (09.10.2015-31.01.2016).