Art Education

The exhibitions of the British painter and rising star Louise Giovanelli, A Song of Ascents, and of the Styrian artist Evelyn Plaschg, Viscious City, present two young painters who impressively demonstrate how painting today can serve as a medium of reflection and experience. The distinct visual languages of both artists, which address a wide range of themes — both personal and societal — invite the audience to engage with the female gaze, that is, the female perspective opposing the dominant male gaze in the canon of art history, while also exploring memory, body, and space.

Louise Giovanelli creates evocative paintings that blend reality and fantasy through their luminous colors and enigmatic imagery. Her work often features mysterious objects or details and fragments, such as closed curtains, hair in the light, or other shiny surfaces, as well as female figures who seem to be caught in a moment of inner transformation: the scenes remain deliberately ambiguous. The title of her exhibition, A Song of Ascents, borrowed from a series of religious psalms, particularly references the human striving for transcendence — whether through spirituality, religion, or through intoxication or love. This search is reflected in Giovanelli’s paintings as an intense interplay of emotions oscillating between ecstasy and unease. Giovanelli draws inspiration not only from film stills, her own photographs, places such as Working Men’s Clubs in England or theaters — whose shimmering fabrics, stage lighting, and fine details she adopts and transforms into a kind of sacred space — but also from Instagram. In her own unique way, she weaves influences from Renaissance painting with motifs from the pop culture of the 1970s, ​’80s, and ​’90s. Executed in classical oil painting technique, built up layer by layer — often starting with a layer of gesso, overlaid by neon colors, and then a darker tone — her works appear both familiar and otherworldly.

Evelyn Plaschg is one of the most distinctive voices of the young generation of painters in Austria. Her works are characterized by an immediate, contemporary visual language in which personal experiences, digital aesthetics, and painterly sophistication overlap. Plaschg often starts from digital sources: casual smartphone snapshots transformed into complex paintings, including fragmented bodies, everyday objects, and architectural details. The result is often a tension between proximity and distance, authenticity and staging, reflecting the sensibility of a digitally shaped present and generation. The exhibition Viscious City at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark makes this approach visible for the first time in a comprehensive solo presentation.

Both exhibitions offer visitors the opportunity to engage with questions of modern identity, emotional depth, and aesthetic experience. Both positions exemplify that painting is much more than mere representation — it can be used as a means to make internal processes visible, question boundaries, and open up entirely new perspectives.

In order to encourage visitors to see and approach art on various levels, the mediation department of HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark offers formats designed specifically to address different target groups. Concieved as programs to provide information, while offering dialogue and exchange, the focus is also to present art in an enjoyable way. 

In addition to special guided tours for school and university students, we offer tours for visitors in the Walk & Talk series.

Within the context of the exhibitions, we regularly offer tours through the exhibition. Dates and further information can be found on our program site.

Coole Schule Tour for Students 
Free Entry to the exhibition
Tour: 1 Euro per person 

Academy Tour for university students 
Free Entry to the exhibition
Exhibition ticket: 1 Euro per person

Inquiries:
cf@​halle-​fuer-​kunst.​at; 0316 740084 11

If you are interested in any of the formats, please do not hesitate to contact Caro Feistritzer (cf@​halle-​fuer-​kunst.​at; +43 316 740084 11).

In addition to individual appointments for groups, there is a public tour through the exhibition every Saturday at 11 am, which can be attended without prior registration.

The exhibitions of the British painter and rising star Louise Giovanelli, A Song of Ascents, and of the Styrian artist Evelyn Plaschg, Viscious City, present two young painters who impressively demonstrate how painting today can serve as a medium of reflection and experience. The distinct visual languages of both artists, which address a wide range of themes — both personal and societal — invite the audience to engage with the female gaze, that is, the female perspective opposing the dominant male gaze in the canon of art history, while also exploring memory, body, and space.
 

Louise Giovanelli creates evocative paintings that blend reality and fantasy through their luminous colors and enigmatic imagery. Her work often features mysterious objects or details and fragments, such as closed curtains, hair in the light, or other shiny surfaces, as well as female figures who seem to be caught in a moment of inner transformation: the scenes remain deliberately ambiguous. The title of her exhibition, A Song of Ascents, borrowed from a series of religious psalms, particularly references the human striving for transcendence — whether through spirituality, religion, or through intoxication or love. This search is reflected in Giovanelli’s paintings as an intense interplay of emotions oscillating between ecstasy and unease. Giovanelli draws inspiration not only from film stills, her own photographs, places such as Working Men’s Clubs in England or theaters — whose shimmering fabrics, stage lighting, and fine details she adopts and transforms into a kind of sacred space — but also from Instagram. In her own unique way, she weaves influences from Renaissance painting with motifs from the pop culture of the 1970s, ​’80s, and ​’90s. Executed in classical oil painting technique, built up layer by layer — often starting with a layer of gesso, overlaid by neon colors, and then a darker tone — her works appear both familiar and otherworldly.

Evelyn Plaschg is one of the most distinctive voices of the young generation of painters in Austria. Her works are characterized by an immediate, contemporary visual language in which personal experiences, digital aesthetics, and painterly sophistication overlap. Plaschg often starts from digital sources: casual smartphone snapshots transformed into complex paintings, including fragmented bodies, everyday objects, and architectural details. The result is often a tension between proximity and distance, authenticity and staging, reflecting the sensibility of a digitally shaped present and generation. The exhibition Viscious City at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark makes this approach visible for the first time in a comprehensive solo presentation.

Both exhibitions offer visitors the opportunity to engage with questions of modern identity, emotional depth, and aesthetic experience. Both positions exemplify that painting is much more than mere representation — it can be used as a means to make internal processes visible, question boundaries, and open up entirely new perspectives.