„Perhaps the day will come when we can integrate.“1 Aspects of ontology, mythology, and technology unfolded through many faces of persona.
Organic machinery, systematic portrayal, craftsmanship, and uncanny hybridization. Do these faces function as sites of revelation, exposing the subjects they represent, or do they operate as surfaces that veil them as much as they disclose?
THE HALL. PART International Art Residency Austria 2026. Photo: Michael Strasser
The exhibiting space THE HALL was an atelier of the Austrian artist and sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka in the period from the 1950s until he died in 2009. For heritage preservation reasons, an additional wall was constructed in THE HALL to protect Hrdlička’s murals that were painted directly onto the building’s walls. The wall built to protect Hrdlička’s murals is six meters high and fifteen meters long for the occasion of the exhibition persona. fragments of identity, it was painted by Krakow-born and Vienna-based artist Paulina Semkowicz. The site-specific work not seeming, but being (2026), was painted over the course of seven days. The work culminated in a façade with a history, trompe l’oeil dust, marks, mold, depth, and patina, in size and impression similar to the sections of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (Nymphéas) murals. An idyllic place “worn out” with time passing, a memory, a flesh. The wall set the scenery behind the sculptures by the three artists standing on the elevated floor made of the metal grid.
A real skēnē (σκηνή) sets the atmosphere for the concrete mermaids by Estonian artist Edith Karlson. The mermaids are spreading their arms and tails on the floor: three sculptures from the mermaid series titled Can’t see on view, the ones with additions of the female names Johanna, Liisa and Eva. Karlson started the series on the occasion of the exhibition Art in the Age of the Anthropocene at KUMU Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia, 2023. Since then, they have been “swimming” in many waters: in Estonia but also in Venice, where the artist exhibited them as a part of her contribution in the Estonian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. What used to be a bird body with the female head, and a female head and torso with the fish tail, Karlson swiveled into the fish head with the human torso and fish tail. Before they were cast in concrete, they could have been made from debris collected during one of the walks the artist takes often near the sea in the countryside in Estonia. Referencing the mythologies and many faces of mermaids or sirens, took over centuries in different cultures, the artist questions what it could be if the animal took the lead in this narrative. What could happen if nature won over culture?
Many portraits were produced in the Edith Karlson studio over the years. Return to Innocents (2023-2024) started during pandemic times and isolation the artist faced for months being unable to leave the island. Receiving visits in her studio by friends, colleagues, and family members. To make the visit productive, she offered terracotta to the visitors and asked them to sculpt the portrait of themselves out of it. Hundreds of portraits were made innocently, portraying not only their physical features but also emotional states.
THE HALL. PART International Art Residency Austria 2026. Photo: Michael Strasser
Vienna-based artist Yein Lee’s three sculptures don’t distinguish among nature and technology. Between figuration and abstraction. Bodies fluidly moving from the city landscape; birds sitting on the wire, artist self-portrait face casts. One of the sculptures, Scavengers, you are crying for you. how sweet (2024) is made of repurposed plastic waste, material which no longer “serves” its original function. Wires are instrumentalized to look like as if they send the signals to receivers and dispatchers. Mirroring Lee’s method of collecting materials and fragments and assembling them in a skeletal system often activated through performances. Lee later titles them with certain directions of thoughts for a spectator but leaves enough of open space for interpretation.
A cyborg-looking, pink, high-gloss lacquered wooden sculpture by Austrian artist Jakob Lena Knebl. Wearing the cape out of white fur and synthetic wigs. It reminded me of the two-headed dog from Greek mythology named Orthrus. Brother to Cerberus, the multi-headed (usually three-headed) dog who guarded the entrance to the Underworld. Orthrus guarded the cattle of the giant Geryon until he was slain by Heracles during the tenth of his Twelve Labors. The faces of the artists Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl are framed with baroque-like ornamentation; the sculpture Ashley & Lena, (2023) flirts with the notion of design in art. „Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.“2
The opening of the exhibition was followed by the performance Fragmented Borders by artist residing in PART, Odie Lap Chun Chow. The performance was a take on the unstable conditions of the material and borders, in a metaphorical and physical sense. Playing with stone and clay, presenting his process of ceramic making. Odie Lap Chun Chow is the first recipient of the EKA x PART Horizon Residency Award, representing the Estonian Academy of Arts, where he graduated from the Craft Studies MA program. As an addition, he exhibits the wall pieces, negative spaces of the plaster molds. The artist is making sense of the where he was born; city of Hong Kong that is chronically between identities. In a restless limbo, belonging fully to no one and everyone at once, speaking about the artist’s personal search for identity and belonging. Simultaneously carrying over the implications of these questions to other works in the exhibition.
persona: a mask, protection, embellished truth, or candid façade?
Group Exhibition: persona. fragments of identity
With works by: Odie Lap Chun Chow, Edith Karlson, Jakob Lena Knebl, Yein Lee, and Paulina Semkowicz
Curated by: Barbara Horvath
Curator’s Tour: 28 September & 16 October 2026, 5 PM
Duration: 05 September – 16 October 2026
Venue: THE HALL. PART International Art Residency Austria.
Opening hours: Friday 1-6 PM | Saturday 12 PM-5 PM
and by appointment: welcome@partresidency.at
Address and contact:
PART International Art Residency Austria
Meiereistraße 3, 1020 Vienna
www.partresidency.at
www.instagram.com/partresidency
