ARTIST BIO

Kurt Koeppl lives and works from his home studio in the beach side suburb of Maroubra NSW.

Koeppl graduated from the Pranckh Graphic Arts School in 1957 as a Chemigraph (photo engraver) which gave him a solid foundation in drawing, colour separation, design, engraving and photography. Working as an Art Director in the commercial world of graphics and advertising  and the pre press industry, his skills and techniques are well developed. His influences in his early years were the European masters and later the great Australian painters.

His work is found in private collections here and in Germany  and reflects his life and travels. Kurt had his first Australian exhibition in the 70’s at the Beaulieu Gallery Paddington and a follow up exhibition at the Sebert Galleries. In the following decade his work reflected Australian landscapes and characters of the time from Hill End to Lighting Ridge Dappling in many mediums and styles from very dark and powerful German mythology, “Nibelunges’ reflected in his airbrush and charcoal works, to more traditional acrylic land and seascapes of the Australian bush and the characters found there. Watercolour has now become his preferred medium which provides a challenge.

He loves to work quickly and spontaneously seemingly incidental but with years of craft practice behind it all.  His sell out Venice exhibition in the Blackett gallery at POW, captured the dramatic skies, dark moods and romance of his favourite city. Kurt has ventured more into the abstraction of his world where some images seem to assault the viewer, dark, chaotic and busy with deeper symbolic meaning such as  “Urban Asphyxiation’. At times he produces quieter, melancholic images.

With the advent of the Bush fire disasters and floods, his recent exhibition captured his emotional response to the devastation.  The covid lockdowns and isolation have only spurred him on to produce exciting new abstract and expressive works. Kurt is a story teller and his figures in the landscape provide a metaphor to provoke a narrative between humanity and the natural environment.  A fragile link.