Johann Garber (Austrian, b. 1947)

Johann Garber was born in 1947 in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. He began treatment at the psychiatric hosptal in Gugging at the age of 19, and has lived in the Gugging House of Artists since 1981. He has been creating art since the late 1970s. His first works were roughly bocked-in figures using colored pencils. But by the early 1980s he had developed his characteristic technique of fine line drawing in black ink on paper. He has already found international recognition as an artist. Most of his drawings present a main theme that is decorated down to the finest detail. Taking inspiration from old calendars, photos and other convenient visual sources with ornamental figures, animal depictions and symbols, he draws one main theme then fills the remaining picture surface. In some works, sexual organs become compositional elements; while in others he records impressions of cities he has never actually visited.

Garber also produces very colorful, flatly painted pictures of objects, figures or animals. Found objects such as pieces of wood, tree fungi and the like have provided additional surfaces for Garber's colorful painting. His brush has also transformed the huge furnace in the House of Artists into a classic Art Brut object.