About

Elisabeth Oberrauch was born 1950 in Merano, Italy where she works and lives with her family. She studied the masterclass of painting from 1971-1972, in Graz, Austria, participated at the international summer academy in Salzburg, Austria and did the academy for graphic arts in Venice, Italy 1990-1992.

She has been represented in a large number of individual and group exhibitions locally and internationally for over 40 years and has been organizing interdisciplinary working weeks in St. Konstantin, Völs as advanced training for visual artists, musicians and landscape designers since 2005.

In the selection of works shown at the Aurora Hotel premises the artist avoids the object as a pictorial motif on her flat, precisely held canvases and, in contrast to her travel diaries, opts for the expressiveness of pure painting. For a painting that is shaped in equal parts by the impressions of what is seen, for example the eye, and memories. Fragments of naturalistic details can still be recognized, but these are mixed with the abstract and poetic.  The artist sets vegetative forms and signs in the atmospheric colored surfaces, dominated by warm earth tones; There is a marriage of line and surface, of gesture and painting. Image titles with associations such as “Saikung”, “Arkadia”, “Monogramm” or “Waterfall” facilitate the access and connection for the visitor and provide information about what is not - visible on the first hand.

The digitally overloaded present with endless blogs and loads of photos uploaded to the Internet in real time is contrasting, tho the approach of Elisabeth Oberrauch, whose sensual materiality sets a strong antithesis to inflationary digital reporting. The artist has a long tradition with her travel books as she has been traveling the world for 25 years and every time takes a book, which is elaborately hand-bound with special papers, with her. She will fill the unique „diary"with her impressions in the course of the trip: sketches, watercolors, drawings, found objects. Since the Renaissance, sketches and impressions of foreign countries have appeared in art and science, adventurers and discoverers supplemented their diaries with pictures and drawings.

Oberrauch's books, each of a unique character, contain a total of more than 1000 pictures, none of which have been revised. Each of these books breathes the spirit of the immediate and the atmosphere of the travel destination, be it through picked-up ornaments, the predominant color scheme or the found objects kept in small transparent bags. Turquoise is the color of Asia, India in shining blossoms. When leafing through the volumes, the viewer reveals not only the visual but also a haptic-material level.

During the exhibition at the Aurora hotel the artist will scroll trough her books and visitors will be given the opportunity to touch and feel them first hand.

The work shown at the Aurora

Event Photos

THE IDEA

The aim is to curate the Hotel’s art specifically - we want there to be good stories and a lasting wellbeing for the guests as well as try to make them have a unique and distinctive experience. The interplay of art design and the Hotel Aurora’s architecture is what characterizes this special place in South Tyrol. The historic hotel in Merano is marked by art treasures and designer pieces that one can find throughout the hotel as well as in every room and this is what makes the Aurora so outstanding. Carte Blanche will host about 6 art exhibitions per year and is keen on giving artists the opportunity to also create site specific works for the hotel that will be shown permanently. The shown art works as well as art editions of works on display will be available at the Hotels Aurora’s own art corner.

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THE CURATOR

The upcoming exhibitions will be curated by the freelance curator Eva von Ingram Harpf. Curator Eva von Ingram Harpf, 1987, after graduating from Bocconi University in Milan with a thesis in Art Banking worked at Johann König Gallery in Berlin, as well as Ghetta Gallery, Ortisei and holds a Master´s degree in Contemporary Art from Sothebys London. Since 2012 she works as an independent curator and art adviser and is based in Bolzano, Südtirol, Italy. She is a member of the board of ar/ge Kunst Bozen and founder of y-contemporary platform.