Wolfgang Widmoser has come a long way, and a
very orthodox one. Born in Munich in the early fifties he appeared
just in time to experience the troubled intellectual European
scenery of what is now called the student's movement. To study art,
Wolfgang Widmoser made a choice that seemed odd at the time... He
went to Vienna where Ernst Fuchs resided as the living antithesis
to reductionist and politicised main stream art in Germany. Fuchs
represented a school of indulgent sumptuous and luxurious anarchy,
both bourgeois and nihilistic; a very Austrian tradition. Fuchs
asked his students to learn painting in the manners of the Italian
masters, using oil, varnish and shellac. Here Wolfgang learned
about shade, shadows and lights. Considered a prodigy, he was sent
for some weeks by Fuchs to Cadaques in Spain to study with Salvador
Dali. Years of travel and searching followed. Wolfgang Widmoser -
after some adventurous excursions in which he and his friends
ambushed the Hamburg Art Academy with colour bombs - walked away in
a very classical and German way. Wolfgang went south to Italy
following a tradition, since J.W Goethe's time, to discover the
light and the lightness of being in the land of lemons - considered
a must for poets and painters. On the way Wolfgang stopped over in
Switzerland. Here, from his window, he painted the structure of
rocks, mountain slopes and walls of conifers with a stubbornness
that might be explained by his Bavarian roots. Wolfgang is a man of
detail and as they say the devil is in the detail... Again and
again he painted the same objects, rocks, moths and later sea
shells which he found in Australia. Later in Italy his colours
became brighter, the frames wider. When he eventually moved to Bali
he saw this as convenient though Wolfgang vehemently denies any
links to the handicraft culture of the "Island of Gods" and he has
no interest in such folklore and equally no romantic qualms about
the place. He is mindful that even Gauguin had to learn that the
bucolic idyll of Tahiti was in reality very different. Wolfgang
consistently painted series of still life works until he discovered
the photos of Papuan faces that inspired him to obsession. These
paintings are hugely formatted to show the human faces as
landscapes. Very soon collectors and galleries became aware of the
demanding quality of Wolfgang's work. He exhibited in Munich,
Zurich, Milan, Tokyo and Hong Kong and some collectors commissioned
wall paintings, in the fresco style, for their villas and lofts.
Also he became interested in constructing futuristic homes and
spaces with bamboo, influenced by the architect Frei Otto. Now
Wolfgang's work is taking a different direction, inspired by the
people of Ubud, his family and the positive environment in which he
lives. This is leading Wolfgang into exiting and unknown
territories of which his recent virtual-realistic paintings of
water lilies and female Balinese heads attest. Wolfgang sees
himself being drawn more and more in the direction of what we
perceive as "beauty." Wolfgang Widmoser is fanatical about painting
classically with brush (and mirror) and yet he succeeds in seeing
the world with eyes of the 21th century - a Renaissance-man in the
age of scientific discovery. Based on a script by Stefan Reisner -
edited and updated by Humphrey for Ubud.com Deutsch