Herbert Brandl, born in Graz in 1959 and now working in Vienna, represents one of the most influential formations in modern painting. His participation in the document IX in Kassel in 1992, the 1997 Biennale di Venezia, and his solo exhibition in the Hamburg Deichtorhallen in 2009 testify to his international prominence. Ever since Brandl’s artistic beginnings the landscape has taken on a dominant role in his painting; here the pictorial composition hovers chatoyant in varying degrees between painterly abstraction and objectivity of motif. This “both…and…” versatility has become more marked, particularly since 2000, when the artist integrated the mountain as a concrete image into his painting. Since then, abstract colour field paintings and pictures of mighty mountain ranges have existed side by side.