Zeilinger Anna

Anna Zeilinger works in photography, environmental art and drawing. She has completed several artist residencies in Finland and has exhibited across Europe and in the USA. She studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with an emphasis on media art with Bernhard Leitner and Dr. Cathrin Pichler and was awarded an Erasmus FREE MOVER scholarship to study at the photography department of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, Germany.

Artist Statement:
In my work I explore the relationship between art, artificiality and nature. My environmental installations aren’t as distinct from nature as they may first seem because there is no such thing as nature that is uninfluenced by humans.

In contrast to the land art of the Sixties and Seventies I don’t do major changes in the actual landscape as some artists did then. Either my installations exist just for a short period of time with only the photographs remaining or I decide to prepare the installations only digitally without any plans of realizing them outside of the realm of the photograph. Through this approach I emphasize the ephemeral quality of my work and I also consider it more environmentally friendly.

I analyse concepts of the concrete and the abstract which I don’t necessarily see as fundamental opposites. I seek possibilities to achieve both at the same time. Thereby I superimpose layers of the abstract and the concrete, with concrete forms appearing abstract and vice versa.

Foto: Anna Zeilinger, 2006