Michael Kravagna

Born 1962 in Klagenfurt.
Studied at Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien.
Lives and works since 1992 in Saint Séverin, Nandrin, Belgium
The basic principle of Michael Kravagna’s painting is the exploration of its own elementary elements: its materiality, sensuality, transcendence and its challenge to human perception. The paintings are painted in layers over long periods of time and as a result appear to be magical protocols of their own history. Many of his most recent works are each dominated by a dominant pictorial gesture: a line, a scratch, an evenly wiped surface, etc., which in ostentatious repetition dominate the formal structure of the painting. The accompanying strict, almost ceremonial process of producing the paintings does not, however, have a restrictive effect, but rather unfolds an extremely effective variety of difference and repetition. Since the beginning of his career as a painter, Kravagna has been experimenting with the composition of the painting medium and the organic transformation processes of the material. These processes are similar to the development and decay in nature: growth and decay, formation and erosion. In his works, he reflects on such natural processes of transformation of matter, motivates, accelerates, radicalizes, or restores them.
1989 Preis des Landes Niederösterreich
1990 Auslandsstipendium für Madrid.
1999 Bauholding Förderungspreis für Bildende Kunst (STRABAG ART AWARD)
Mitglied Künstlerhaus Wien
Membre titulaire du Cercle Artistique de Luxembourg