LONDON.- Modern Art is presenting a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Martha Jungwirth. This is her first gallery exhibition in the UK.

Martha Jungwirth (born in 1940) has occupied an important position in Austrian art history since the 1960s... After her studies at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna from 1956 to 1963, Jungwirth appeared in public with works in various media, such as pencil drawings, watercolors, and works in oil and ink. In 1968 she was the sole woman among the founding members of the loose “Wirklichkeiten” [“Realities”] group of artists, yet even then she pursued her own, distinctive path, oscillating between gesturally abstract and formal compositions. Jungwirth’s painting process emerges from a combination of intuitive spontaneity and control of her aesthetic principles at the same time. This tension between the unconscious and the calculated, between gesture, form, trace and color, provides the environment for the artist not only to examine mirror images of her inner moods, but also the essential basic principles of painting. Her creative process is, in effect, one of continuous experimentation with an open outcome: Reacting to sudden impulses, Jungwirth places energetic, colorful marks on canvas or paper that then, through layering, overlapping and blurring, all at once recede, as the ambivalent act of showing and hiding sets the pictorial plane in motion. Her resolutely impulsive working method, however, always comes through. Coincidence and energetic intuition, with all the corrections, stains and streaks they bring to the painting process, remain visible and create a richly varied atmosphere in works that range from the seemingly ephemeral, transparent to the dense and pastose. Martha Jungwirth’s characteristic compositions, which perform an elegant balancing act on the thin line between realism and abstraction, and distinguish themselves through their eruptive, gestural style as well as their powerful colors, are poetic and dramatic representations of experiences, emotions and memories that convey a deep awareness of the immeasurableness of reality.

Hans-Peter Wipplinger in Martha Jungwirth: Retrospective, published on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunsthalle Krems.

Martha Jungwirth was born in Vienna in 1940, where she continues to live and work. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have taken place at Galerie Hass, Zürich (2017); Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna (2016); Kalfayan Gallery, Athens (2016); and Kunsthalle Krems, Krems (2014). She has recently participated in a two-person exhibition with Albert Oehlen at Galerie Mezzanin, Geneva (2017), and has been included in group exhibitions at MuMOK, Vienna, Austria (2016); Kunst der Gegenwart, Klosterneuburg/Wien, Austria (2016); Rupertinum, Salzburg, Austria (2015); and Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria (2014).