Gunda Maria Gruber

Gunda Maria Gruber is a Senior Lecturer for Painting/Art Education at the Department of Fine Arts and Design, Institute for Open Arts, Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Born in 1971 in Salzburg, she studied painting at the Mozarteum University and painting and graphic arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She has been teaching at the Department of Fine Arts & Design since 2004.

Gruber's artistic practice spans painting, multimedia installations, video, and spatial concepts. Her work explores the relationship between interior and exterior spaces, perception, and the fragility of social and spatial orders. She creates 'spatial situations' using collage principles and various media, often incorporating performative elements where her presence is suggested through shadows or personal items. Her installations deliberately fragment conventional spatial understanding, creating experiences where boundaries between reality and representation dissolve.

Her recent work focuses on the intersection of technology and organic systems, examining how digital interfaces reshape our spatial perception. The 2023 exhibition 'THE GEOMETRY OF NON-ORDERS' at Museum der Moderne Salzburg continued her exploration of spatial fragmentation, while 'TECHNOGARDEN' (2022) earned her the Grand Art Prize of the State of Salzburg. Her practice consistently engages with theoretical concepts from Zygmunt Baumann's 'volatile modernity' and Gaston Bachelard's 'Poetics of Space,' translating philosophical ideas into tangible artistic explorations.

Award:

• Grand Art Prize of the State of Salzburg (2022)

Gruber's teaching and artistic practice are deeply interconnected, with her theoretical explorations of space and perception informing both domains. She creates what might be called 'experience spaces' where conventional relationships between inside and outside, up and down, or light and dark are suspended, challenging viewers to confront the limitations of their perception while offering alternative ways of experiencing spatial environments.