Barna
Gal,
1994
ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint to portray human nature as we experience it. When we think of someone we love, we don’t recall a precise silhouette or a perfectly lit photograph. We remember the atmosphere of them - the warmth of a laugh or the gravity of a silence. My work seeks those currents beneath appearances, the abstract feeling that remains when the details fade.
Rather than chasing realism, I follow a figurative abstraction and my adventure is to paint what lingers after the eyes close. To trust abstract realism more than an outline, resonance more than representation. I want the viewer to recognize not a person, but the feeling of a person - to be met by a familiar tenderness, an ache, a spark. If my paintings succeed, they do so by inviting you into my point of view.
BIOGRAPHY
Barna Gal (b. 1994, Linz, Austria) is an emerging painter based in Vienna. Trained as a mechanical engineer at TU Wien, where he completed his master’s degree in 2022 and is currently pursuing a PhD, Gál developed his artistic practice independently, beginning in early 2018 and teaching himself during late-night hours between lectures and labs. This dual background anchors his work in a tension between structure and spontaneity.
In 2023, together with Felix Aspalter and Maximilian Kastens, he co-founded Atelier at Cumberlandstraße 83 in Vienna, a shared studio and project space that fosters dialogue across disciplines.
In June 2025 he presented his first commercial exhibition, a three-person show with Hannah Franke and Blooming in May at Studio245 in Vienna. The exhibition marked a public consolidation of his self-taught trajectory and personal experiences. Since autumn 2025 he has devoted himself full time to his art practice.