www.deviantart.com/leonhard-knabl, @leonhard_knabl
Work: 53.009717,-6.327626, 2024, ink on paper
Rotary Club Krems-Wachau Prize for young artists up to the age of 27, endowed with EUR 2,500 and a curated insight into the museum collections of the City of Krems.
Prize Donor: Rotary Club Krems-Wachau, represented by Manfred Vogl (President)
Laudatory Speech: Florian Steininger (Artistic Director, Kunsthalle Krems)
About the Work
Leonhard Lorenz Knabl, born in Imst, Tyrol, impresses with his finely detailed ink drawing 53.009717,-6.327626. Depicting a forested area, the work strikes a delicate balance between naturalism and abstract structure - a world of dreams and imagination. Inspired by film and literature, Knabl’s piece combines narrative depth with a darkly fantastical atmosphere.
Jury Statement
Knabl’s small-format forest scene convinced the jury with its chamber-music-like delicacy. Sensitive ink strokes cover the paper, and the monochromatic black and cropped composition dissolves naturalism into abstract structure. The title “53.009717,-6.327626” refers to the coordinates of the reference location of the drawing, representing an undergrowth. As the artist explains: “If one is not familiar with the original reference, the coordinates alone reveal nothing about the location, the form of the reference, or the interpretation of the image. The thicket (or whatever one chooses to see in the image) is interchangeable and could exist anywhere on Earth - or even in a world of dreams and fantasies.”
Knabl’s imagery is inspired by film, history, and literature, evoking a darkly fantastical atmosphere and narrative dramaturgy reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings and Alien. His artistic influences include the grotesque in Hieronymus Bosch, the apocalyptically expressive in Albrecht Dürer, and the horrifyingly utopian in H.R. Giger. Ink drawing, alongside watercolor and ballpoint pen, is his preferred technique.
[For the Jury: Florian Steininger]