Elias Franziskus Grüner

Elias Franziskus Grüner is a young contemporary artist from Vienna whose practice spans the visual arts, video and journalistic formats.

'I consider the blowing of the air, the trickling of water, the growing of grain, the surging of the sea, the greenness of the earth, the brilliance of the sky, and the shimmer of the stars to be great: the magnificent passing of a thunderstorm, the lightning that splits houses, the storm that drives the surf, the fire-spewing mountain, the earthquake that buries lands – I do not consider these to be greater than the phenomena mentioned above; indeed, I consider them to be lesser, for they are merely the effects of far higher laws" (Stifter, 1994).

The series 'BUNTE STEINE' is dedicated to the author and painter Adalbert Stifter. The first triptych in this series: 'BUNTE STEINE. LAYER. LAYER. LAYER. HIMMELSSÄULE I, II and III" (on display at the SERVUS Restaurant, 1010 Vienna), was created solely from the rocks that give their names to the stories in Adalbert Stifter's *Bunte Steine*: granite, limestone, tourmaline, rock crystal, cat's silver and mountain milk. The further development of this series is not limited solely to these minerals, but draws on the diversity of nature. All the materials used are pounded into pigments in a brass mortar through endless strokes, and it is with these pigments that the paintings are subsequently created. As a binding agent, I draw upon the oldest glue in human history.

I would now like to return to the themes raised in the preface to the aforementioned volume: the Great and the Small. In my view, these are the driving force and starting point of art itself. It is the artist's aim to guide himself, together with his surroundings, through his artistic expression, away from the Small and towards the Great.
For: the lightning, the thunderstorm or the earthquake alone capture the gaze of the '[…] uninformed and inattentive', whilst the researcher's train of thought is directed primarily towards the whole and the general, and is able to recognise grandeur only in this, because it alone sustains the world. The details pass by, and their effects are scarcely discernible after a short while" (Stifter, 1994).

All phenomena that pass, that is to say, everything perceptible, everything that is form, represents the small. The great—the consciousness that lies beneath the layers of these coming and going trifles—is that towards which we strive, that which ultimately satisfies us, that which we truly are. To see and live this truth in its entirety is, for me, the highest good. Nothing comes close to the fulfilment it brings; nothing can take that fulfilment away.

- Elias Franziskus Grüner, 2023