a room of her own: Louis Eisner & Lukas Gschwandtner

10 November - 20 December 2023
PEANA is thrilled to present 'a room of her own', a two-person exhibition featuring works by Lukas Gschwandtner and Louis Eisner. This exhibition juxtaposes Gschwandtner's architectural "canvas fossils" with Eisner's explorative paintings and sculptures, inviting viewers into a reimagined realm of historical and contemporary art discourse.

Lukas Gschwandtner's work, deeply rooted in the architectural heritage of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, transmutes the 1925 bed sitting room into a modern-day relic. His "canvas fossils" are not mere replications but reincarnations of the room's essence, captured through the meticulous transference onto glass and linen. Gschwandtner’s humorous interjections—ghost marks of ashtrays and the transformation of mundane objects—infuse the space with an air of the quotidian turned uncanny.

In harmonic balance, and carefully placed within and without of the room recreated by Gschwandtner, are a careful selection of paintings and sculptures by Louis Eisner created between 2022-23, these include a landscape, a still life composition, a bronze bust, a clay figure and a portrait. Eisner is often interested in investigating ideologies of representation through recurrent symbols inspired by traditional and classical painting and sculpture. Eisner's works selected for this exhibition, whether they lack a subject or celebrate the recognizable, act as symbolic fulcrums around which the story of the space unfolds, prompting viewers to question and craft the room's history and serve as interpretative anchors within this narrative.

The amalgamation of Gschwandtner's architectural homage with Eisner's allegorical landscapes and figures create an immersive experience for the viewer. The gallery becomes a crucible for historical reflection and contemporary creation, where the past is not merely reconstructed but reimagined. This exhibition is not just a room within a room, but a place of memory.