Modern Christian Art for Modern Spaces

How it started

I founded Atelier WONNEREICH in Vienna in 2016. The starting point was a simple question: how can images accompany people in everyday life – quietly, with presence, and with meaning? My early works focused on making personal moments visible and giving memories a place.

Over time, however, one theme increasingly moved to the center of my artistic practice: Christian visual traditions and their role in the present day.

The problem – the gap

Contemporary Christian art between tradition and the present

For centuries, images of saints were a natural part of everyday life. They offered orientation, inner attitude, and presence – often among the few precious objects people owned. In modern living and working spaces, however, they seemed to have lost their place. Where had they gone? Why were they no longer present?

I missed a form of contemporary Christian art that is aesthetically convincing and not merely decorative, but rooted in a present-day perspective. This led to the core intention of Atelier Wonnereich: to bring Christian visual themes back into everyday life – for modern spaces, without reproducing or idealizing them.

The Challenge – saint paintings for our time

I wanted to help bring the saints back into our daily lives. They should find their place in modern interiors and harmonize with a wide range of architectural styles. They should convey a sense of well-being and quiet distinction, with a subtle sense of luxury – much as sacred images once did.

My works were meant to fulfill several intentions. They should:

• First of all, awaken the mind and sensitize it to beauty
• Combine tradition and present
• Exude joy and appear as lively as possible
• Bring shine to the surroundings
• Be high quality and exceptional in terms of material
• And clearly embody the 21st century

In addition, they should fit just as well in the old building as in the glass room office, in the alpine hut as in the reinforced concrete hall, in the cozy home as well as in the workshop, in the bedroom as well as in the salon, in the dining room of a noble restaurant as well as in the cozy corner of a pub.

The proportions had to be right for our architecture; they should be an eye-catcher without being intrusive.

They should give rooms an unmistakable magic and continually surprise, inspire and delight those who see them. The contemporary images of saints and their visual language are explained in more detail here..

The solution – paintings of Saints between tradition and modernity

The material used for the images of Saints was real gold on handmade paper, for me almost the only option. The Austrian Mint offers 23 carat gold leaf, a double ducat gold. I experimented for a long time and developed my own techniques that allow to apply this finest gold leaf on real handmade paper in such a way that it creates exactly the traces and motifs that I want. The results are hand-painted images, abstract and minimalist with reference to classical tradition.

However, for the martyrs, I wanted to do something that would commemorate their suffering. So I came up with real document ink in red, the color of blood, which I get from Germany. It is made there by hand and is also very valuable.

Das Büttenpapier, ebenfalls handgemacht, beziehe ich nach Verfügbarkeit entweder aus einer der traditionsreichsten Papiermühlen Italiens in Amalfi, oder von der ältesten Papiermühle Spaniens. Letzteres ist näher am A4 Format, während das italienische Papier einige Zentimeter abweichen kann.

A particular challenge was the requirement to let a feature of the 21st century appear. I wanted to adopt the traditional inscription with the name of the saint and decided to achieve this using digital printing techniques. It was extremely difficult but finally I found a way to implement my ideas perfectly.

Modern Christian art for our time – abstract and minimalist

I continuously develop new motifs and techniques in my characteristic abstract-minimalist style. Due to the nature of my working process, it is impossible to create two identical works. However, it allows for the creation of closely related pieces within a series.

All handmade images and hand graphics are signed and dated. A certificate card is also included. You can find a selection of exemplary works at Selected Works.

 

Three main types of the paintings of Saints

There are currently three different types of Atelier Wonnereich motifs on the subject of “Saints”:

1. Concrete motifs, usually limited to a specific saint, such as Saint Anna. They either refer to attributes that can be attributed to the saint, such as a wheel or a tower. Or they illustrate a special event, like in the picture "Epiphany"
2. Holy Dancers are abstract human figures in motion. The dynamic, often quite cheerful motifs suit many saints
3. Trace images are abstract patterns. They either refer to special characteristics of the saint, such as the topic of “healing” at St. Raphael, which is reminiscent of a screen, as it appears during the ongoing defragmentation process. Many trace paintings attempt to depict traces that those depicted might have left behind. In the case of the martyr images in red, they often indicate the traces that come from their suffering and are therefore actually wound images.

Core values of Atelier WONNEREICH

Treating traditions with the utmost respect, but transporting them into today, is one of the core concerns of Atelier WONNEREICH, which specializes in modern Christian design. New materials, such as banners from construction or very traditional materials such as real gold, handmade document inks or particularly high-quality papers create exciting eye-catchers.

The message is the focus. The attractive coexistence and the dialogue between eras, cultures and generations evident in many designs make these images something special.

Atelier Wonnereich's works have been featured in international media since 2019.
Press

About the artist

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