THE PETIT MERODE SALON

Born in 1952, Graz, Austria. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US.

Hubert Schmalix was part of the group of artists that became known under the label “Junge Wilde” in the 1980s, among them Herbert Brandl, Siegfried Anzinger and Erwin Bohatsch. For Schmalix, who studied, amongst others, under Max Melcher at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, fIguration has always been a crucial element of his work, but his focus lies less on the image content than on color, form and surface. Over the decades, and due to his move to the Philippines and Los Angeles, a transition from an expressive-gestic towards a contemplative, reduced form vocabulary is discernible. Besides numerous female nudes, his luminescent landscapes and Californian rows of houses captured from a bird’s-eye view in contrasting color fields are the most impressive examples of his mature work. His motifs merge set pieces of bucolic scenes such as mountains, alpine cabins, waterfalls, gushing streams and driftwood into painted idylls. It is the permanent search for a locus amoenus which, while it doesn’t function as an existential perspective, is indeed a metaphor for the right life within the wrong one. “I’m not a painter who paints the light. I create light through color. This is what defines painting,” says Hubert Schmalix about his art. “One could also say I produce a light that does not exist in reality.” 

He studied under Max Melcher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. His solo exhibitions include DunklesLicht, helles Licht at Smolka Contemporary, Vienna (2021); Eine Wanderung at Galerie Trapp, Salzburg (2016); Casa Tesoro at 1355 MABINI Gallery, Manila (2015); Winter Journey, Reinisch Contemporary, Graz (2012). He lives and works in Vienna and Los Angeles.

In Schmalix's painting "Pensive," the tension between youth and maturity, intimacy and loneliness ispalpable. His figures evoke classical antiquity, while his landscapes expose the darker underbelly of once-bucolic scenes. Through his profound use of deep, heavy tones, Schmalix establishes a commanding dialogue on the canvas. Figures often stand isolated against abstract fields of pure color, enhancing their emotionaldepth.