ERNST ARNOLD BAUER
was born in Linz, Austria in 1949 and studied painting and graphics with Prof. Alfons Ortner at the Linz art academy, where he graduated with honours. He first showed his works 1971 at the Wolfgang Gurlitt Museum in Linz, Austria.
The intensive study of oriental and occidental philosophy and mysticism lead him to his unique philosophy, which to this day shapes and gives distinction to both his life and his art.
Hearkening back to the beginnings of modernism as well as Art Nouveau with clear, clean colours, gold and infinitely fine ornamental enclosures, he found a sumptuous way of expressing his inner life in art. A critic fittingly described this style as 'abstract Klimt’.
Already from his early symbols painted on unprimed canvas or coloured silks there emanates a charm, to which the beholder cannot be impervious. This precious way of painting elicits a response akin to all that is valuable, sublime, true and removed from any intellectual disbelief – much as with the Ottonic illuminations 1000 years before and their iconology and colour symbolism, which subtly find their way into his works. Since the motifs are synonymous and revolve around unearthly, everlasting truths.