Peter Jellitsch »September Variations«

September Variations, 2023

Peter Jellitsch created a series consisting of multiple drawings of a combination of colored pencil and acrylic. In this series, the artist employs the same image in various colors and forms, effectively divorcing it from its original context. During this process, Jellitsch deconstructs the original image and manipulates its attributes, such as size, proportion, and color, as he sees fit. The origin of these drawings can be traced back to Jellitsch's canvas series of Rearrangements, wherein he meticulously merges four canvases, with the result of distinct reiterations of the same image.

The motifs of this concept were initially sparked by his encounter with the idea of fake palm trees while participating in a residency in Los Angeles. These palm trees were designed to mimic the natural environment and seamlessly blend into urban landscapes. Through his symbolic representation of data obtained from ubiquitous WLAN connections, the artist transformed his data captures into a creative and non-functional topographical panorama.

Peter Jellitsch

The artistic interest of Peter Jellitsch (*1982 in Villach, Austria) moves between the digital and the analogue world. His work focuses on the transformation and visualization of processes that relate to our daily lives, such as data streams and invisible networks that permanently surround us in all areas of our contemporary life. In this context, the art of Peter Jellitsch can also be understood as a search for alternative forms of articulating "space" without describing or showing it through the conventions prescribed by sculpture and architecture, for example.

Peter Jellitsch studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna after completing a carpentry apprenticeship. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the USA and are in collections such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, the Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten and the Kupferstichkabinett in Vienna. Peter Jellitsch has been a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna since 2011.

Read our story with Peter Jellitsch in his studio.

Photos: Markus Gradwohl