Statement
When I started this work, Kafka Tiles, in spring 2004, my point of departure was a vague knowledge of Kafka's work from having read it a long time ago, when I was still in high school. Upon re-reading it, I was completely surprised because in my memory the symbolic, the dream world, the "deeper" meanings were significant, and now I was much more struck by the precise way in which he described small situations, gestures, insights, and also how hilariously funny he was.

In this process of reading I started drawing whenever I had the feeling of something coming up, like a photographer who waits for the right moment, or, especially with the short pieces, I tried to draw a conclusion of sorts. Out of these many, many drawings I selected the ones in which I thought I "got it." I turned these images into a series of screen prints on white tiles.

Biography
Wallner was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1961 and studied sculpture at the Vienna Academy of Art. He has exhibited his work in Europe and the United States, most recently at the International Print Center and Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. In addition to prints and drawings, he has worked on several animated film projects which make use of extensive frame-by-frame drawing. One notable work shot every frame of a evolving drawing of figures atop the writings of Mao Tse Tung. Wallner runs an artist-in-residence program, Hotel Pupik, in Schwarzenberg'schen Meirie in Schrattenberg, Austria.

More Information
More information about Heimo Wallner's work and background is available from Hotcakes Gallery at (414) 961-7714 or on the contact Hotcakes page of the website.