More about my work (and my attitude) by Frank Ettenberg, June 2008

In the summer of 1959 I started doing art as a 13-yr old American teenager. I was at a summer work camp and studied with an abstract expressionist painter. Just after beginning, I decided to avoid realistic subjects and committed myself to doing non-objective art. This first art teacher also said that my work, even then, looked European. It was a natural progression, therefore, to expect to go to Europe as part of my career. But first, during my years of attending college, I completed the Master of Art program at the University of New Mexico, earning my master of arts in painting summer of 1971. I lived and painted independently in Santa Fe, N.M. from 1972 to 2003, establishing myself in the Southwestern US as a fairly well-known abstract artist.

When I first started doing art I was intrigued by doing pictures according to a process of free association. Pieces were usually started on the spot, with little planning involved. Around 1970, I did start to indulge the notion of planning my work, according to arranging progressions of forms. I would intially set aside a gridwork of between 4 and sixteen boxes,which would allow me to steadily enlarge or shrink various kinds of simple forms or marks, which had either an architectonic or a biomorphic character. I noticed that this turned out to be my own homage to cinematic art and taught me that I was, as ever, committed to seeing forms exist in mobility, go through changes, and perhaps end up dissolving into nothingness.

In any event, the idea of doing work according to Breton’s notion of ‘pure, psychic automatism’ has remained an essential underpinning of my work. From the start, I’ve been creatively allied with authors like James Joyce, American and European abstract expressionists, as well as with Classical and Jazz composers from both of these continents. No matter how much planning goes into my art, my basic creative premise is rooted in doing the work spontaneously, rhythmically and with much gusto. Around 1993, I set about mastering the use of the chinese brush since I switched to working exclusively with acrylic paint, having done oil painting for over 30 years. My first chinese brushes came directly from Peking in 1992, when a AUA (Austrian Airline) colleague of my ex-wife brought some back to me.

From 1990 onwards, Austria was to become a central part of my life, once I married a Styrian lady in my hometown of Santa Fe, NM. From then on I would journey to Austria for periods of time, setting up a studio in Stainach, Stmk in 1991, visiting galleries and museums in Salzburg and Wien, as well in neighboring countries. Truly pivotal was my seeing part of the Sammlung Essl at Vienna’s Künstlerhaus in 1995. I was impressed by the work of at least 7 artists in that exhibition (Scheibl, Brandl, Ringel, Prachensky, Bohatsch, Damisch, Mikl, Rainer, among others) whose vital art had been previously unknown to me. Of course, I fantasized that since Essl was a man of such discerment regarding non-objective art, he would get to see my paintings and realize that he could make room for my work in his collection.

So in reviewing my ‘case’, let us say that I landed here in Austria as one who’s felt predestined to be here. Of course, the immigration office may ultimately disagree with that.

I have gone well beyond being a tourist, since the music and art of Austria has been seen and heard often in my home and in my studio for years now, wherever I might hang my hat. In recent years, I also learned that a great-uncle of mine was a well-known mayor of Neunkirchen in Lower Austria.

My creative life goes on and progresses. How different am I from a young, 'emerging' artist? As always, I invite all you interested art-lovers to step forward and offer your opinions about the status, if not the price, of my work.