Micha/Martin PAYER/GABRIEL, 2011-2016 on the road #13 on the road #13

In their jointly created, meticulously detailed drawings with colored and lead pencil, the artist duo Payer/Gabriel often deals with psychological and philosophical issues, as well as addressing everyday situations and their experiences, which are processed through their artworks. Their choice of motifs draws on a broad spectrum of sources, for instance academic publications, antiquarian books, encyclopedias, Internet finds, photographs, private archive material, as well as topical issues and experiences; it serves as the foundation underpinning complex, multi-layered visual networks. “on the road #13” comes from an extensive series of twenty-five drawings that is entitled “shine brite.” The individual works in the series are to be read as mosaics, with the various parts representing a kind of visual diary of their 2011 artist-in-residence stay in Chicago. The humorous title refers to the initial event that sparked this series: having the car they bought there washed in the “shine brite” car wash. It was there that they came up with the idea of transforming all their impressions and observations into a chain of visual associations in the form of colored pencil drawings. “on the road #13” cites documented visual fragments from a trip to the USA’s southern states, playfully and wittily compiled into a collage-like drawing.

Micha Payer (Wolfsberg/AT 1979) and Martin Gabriel (Linz/AT 1976) form the artist duo Payer/Gabriel. Both studied at the Friedl Kubelka School for Artistic Photography in Vienna, at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In 2010 the duo won a STRABAG Artaward International Recognition Award.