Ingrid Brandstetter

Biography

Ingrid Brandstetter was born in Schiltern, Lower Austria. She studied painting and graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as a master class student under Professor Maximilian Melcher. Today, the artist lives and works in Schönberg am Kamp.

Her paintings always emerge in cycles, each dedicated to a specific topic. During the creative process, Brandstetter draws inspiration from different sources, especially literature. The different series’ titles reference classical literary works as sources of inspiration. Examples include "Metamorphoses", "Alcestis", "The Divine Comedy", "Narcissus", "Eros". Greek mythology, as well as the writings of Ovid and Dante Alighieri, features prominently. Musically-inspired paintings include "Divertimenti“ or "Allegro ma non troppo", while another series captures everyday life in works like "Sheltered" or "Mobile". In 2002 Brandstetter painted “Male images“, and its counterpart “Women’s room“ (both plays on words in German referencing archaic gender terms) appeared in 2011 and 2012. Her most recent series of paintings are titled “In Focus“ (2013), “ Diwan - Diwan“ (2014) and “In-Between Worlds“ (2015). The individual as a person forms the heart of her representations, but she nonetheless consciously eschews portraiture. Her imagery, the result of artistic fantasy, is inspired by real-life encounters as opposed to true likenesses. According to Brandstetter, “often these are faces from my mind“. The artist’s paintings are characterized by an intense interest in colourfulness and spatial experience created by colour and light. Some of her works are held by Lower Austria’s Department of Culture, as well as the State of Lower Austria, the Federal Ministry of Education, and the regional Raiffeisen bank. A large number of Brandstetter’s paintings have also found their way into private collections.