SHATTERING AWAKENING

The world is changing, and Werner Casty feels this shift in his art. As an avid mountaineer, he now brings the intensity of his physical boundary-pushing experiences into his work.

While the sense of movement in his often photo-like drawings remains, an unsettling atmosphere has emerged. Colors now break through the darkness of his charcoal works, adding a new layer of emotion to the small-format pieces, evoking the feel of painterly compositions.

Beyond news of rockfalls, landslides, and the relentless melting of glaciers, a studio stay in Genoa deeply influenced his choice of materials: the charcoal he discovered there allows him to draw more freely, intensifying both movement and depth. For a time, the mountain man became a city dweller, wandering the parks of the port city.

In the charcoal drawings he created in Genoa, viewers are drawn to a heightened awareness of their own physicality, almost turning them into “walkers within the picture.”

Pastel chalks now add color to his pieces, with series like “abends” (evening) and “wolkig” (cloudy) creating a heightened sense of drama. Large works like Il Giardino di Renzo combine graphite outlines on color-primed paper, blending structure and dissolution into a powerful expression of the present moment.