Michael Ornauer Austrian, b. 1979

Michael Ornauer, born in 1979, lives and works in Vienna, Austria. His practice investigates the tension between control and coincidence within the act of painting. He embraces the principle that there are no mistakes—only points of departure for transformation. Conceptually, this approach resonates with Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with gold, in which imperfection becomes a source of value and completion. In Ornauer’s paintings, each successive layer builds upon and alters the previous one, resulting in a final image that is the cumulative outcome of both intention and accident.

Employing a vertical squeegee technique, Ornauer draws paint from top to bottom across the canvas, generating the distinctive color gradients that define his work. These transitional zones—where pigments merge, fracture, or dissolve—form the compositional and conceptual core of his practice. They serve as sites of negotiation between order and flux, where ideas of color harmony, contrast, and instability are continually re-examined.

The question of beauty and kitsch always resonates. Ornauer’s works oscillate between visual opulence and restraint. His chromatic series often culminate in black monochromes—moments of deliberate reduction that function as both conclusion and renewal, underscoring his sustained engagement with the material and philosophical dimensions of painting.