ERNESTINE FAUX

Born in Graz, I trained as a haute couture designer-artist in Vienna. For more than two decades I lived in the Middle East and Asia, moving between fashion and painting until, in 1994, I turned entirely to visual art.

Since the turn of the millennium, I have shared my creative time between Austria and Bali-Indonesia. This life between cultures, between the West and Asia, shaped my artistic language and continues to provide valuable inspiration for my exploration of colour, light, and sound. My paintings unfold as layered colour fields; my reliefs expand into three dimensions, and sculptures serve as points of orientation in nature. Often, sound enters as well – through my synaesthetic perception I explore how colour and vibration touch the emotional body, so that seeing becomes listening and feeling at once. In 2024, I presented both paintings and a sound performance at the European Cultural Centre, Palazzo Mora, during the Venice Biennale.

I paint with oils and mixed media, working with materials that carry their own radiance: gold, silver, copper, resin, and especially 24-karat gold leaf. These layers build luminous surfaces that shift between transparency and depth. For me, painting is an act of presence – each work opening as a portal that invites connection and the experience of colour as an expression of life and love.

In the art scene my practice has often been described as minimalistic and kinetic – a language of movement in stillness. Curator Annabel Roque Rodríguez has referred to my works as belonging to the field of Kinetic Art, recognising how light and perspective set colour in motion. My latest works, Open Circles, extend this research: circles that unfold into portals, inviting viewers to step inside. They are thresholds of chromatic resonance – spaces where light is not only seen but felt.

My latest works from the Open Circles series will be presented at the INC Art Fair Bodensee in November 2025, offering a first opportunity to encounter these new portals in a public setting.