Egon Straszer

Born 1966 in Malta/Carinthia. Lives and works in Carinthia.

1981-1990 Trained as a blacksmith and sculptor, then assistant at the Salzburg International Summer Academy with Prof Zenzmaier. Numerous exhibitions in Austria, Germany and Italy. Founded the bronze casting association EUG/Salzburg in 1990. Since 1999, member of the association "Begegnung in Kärnten" [kunstwerk] krastal.

Since 2003, member of the Carinthian Art Association. Promotion Prize of the State of Carinthia for Visual Arts, 2006.

"PIECE OF FRUITS" | Serpentine stone from East Tyrol ("Tauerngrün") | cut and polished on a steel pedestal | 2007

The classically trained ornamental blacksmith and sculptor Egon Straszer has been fascinated by stone since his first encounter with the material.

He designates it, gathers his thoughts in it, he uses it as a (thinking) tablet, he reveals its core and he hollows it out until only a delicate web of stone threads seems to prevent the stone from bursting. Stone_clearing takes such treatments as its starting point, but leaves them far behind on a radical path to a new kind of figurality and at the same time abolishes our image of the stone itself. By means of a precise filtration of the stone cuboid, Straszer inscribes a figure in it that we cannot grasp, but can only perceive as a shadow against a light background. This inability to grasp takes the dichotomy of the digital age between virtuality and presence to a stony extreme. The greater the distance, the clearer we recognise the figure at the core of the stone, which remains intangible.

Egon Straszer's works withdraw their form from the viewer's desire. From his beautiful stones we can learn why we desire what cannot be grasped.