Austrian Art Brut creator, born on 22 June 1936 in Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, died on 7 July 2001 in Gugging.
Life
After his father’s death, August Walla was brought up by his mother, Aloisia, and his grandmother, Rosina. At sixteen, after threatening suicide and setting fire to the house, he was committed. On his release he lived with his mother, who watched over him, in several successive flats in Klosterneuburg; he covered their walls with inscriptions, emblems and signs, as he did the family allotment on the banks of the Danube.
In 1970 he was admitted to the Maria Gugging psychiatric hospital. In November 1983 he moved with his mother into the House of Artists (Haus der Künstler) at Gugging, where he lived and worked until his death.
The work
Walla built himself a private mythology, with its own language, symbols and deities. At its centre stand the “Ewigkeitende” (the end of eternity) and Satttus, protector god of humanity; around them, gods, demons, saints, prophets and miracle workers. This struggle against death runs through the whole of his work. He collected dictionaries of foreign languages, drew words from them which he combined to coin his own terms, and closely intertwined drawing and writing.
He set no hierarchy between media: easel painting, mural painting, drawing, text, sculpture, installation, photography, performance. He painted the walls and ceiling of his room, his furniture and objects, the walls of the hospital and neighbouring houses, and drew in chalk on the road. For him, his works were talismans against spirits, people and death.
Exhibitions and collections
- Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne (permanent collection).
- “From the World of Darkness to Rebirth through Creation and Art”, Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 10 June to 23 July 2022: World flow, double-sided drawing, black and coloured pencils, 38 x 28 cm.