Beautiful Paintings

How it started

I founded WONNEREICH in Vienna in 2016 as a small online shop for beautiful murals and special gifts. Customizable images should commemorate important moments in customers' lives. This is how the customizable “maps” and banners were created from building materials for confirmation.

The problem – the gap

Some time later I began to look intensively at images of saints. I missed affordable contemporary murals and aesthetic discussions on this topic for everyone. They used to be an important part of our ancestors' everyday lives and were often the only luxury items they owned. Where had they disappeared to? Why didn't they exist anymore?

The Challenge – Beautiful murals of saints for our time

I wanted to help bring the saints back into our everyday lives. They should find their place in modern rooms and fit in with as many furnishing styles as possible. They should exude a sense of well-being and something extraordinary in all environments. They should have a touch of luxury, just like in earlier times. But they should remain affordable.

The images should meet several requirements. 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 solution – beautiful images that combine 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.

The handmade paper is sourced, depending on availability, either from one of Italy's most traditional paper mills in Amalfi, or from the oldest paper mill in Spain. The latter is closer to A4 format, while the Italian paper can differ by a few centimeters.

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.

Beautiful paintings abstract and minimalist

I am constantly developing new motifs and continue to work on new techniques in the typical abstract-minimalist style. Due to my techniques I can never produce two identical images. But they allow me to create similar images based on the subjects.

Therefore, all hand graphics are also unique, but there are similar others. However there are no similar pictures in those editions, which are made as "individual pieces".

All handmade images and hand graphics are signed and dated. A certificate card is also included.

3 main types of the images

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.

Who and where I am

Core concerns of W O N N E R E I C H

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.

Press

When I started promoting my images of saints to the press in December 2019, after just a few days I received an inquiry from the British lifestyle magazine “House Beautiful”, which was giving away two sets of three archangel images for their competition in January 2020.

LIFESTYLE – MAGAZINE UK

An incredible number of 2965 entries were recorded in the first 5 days, although the competition was limited to Great Britain. In the end there were a total of 14,218 entries, as you can read here.

---

INTOUCH RUGBY

“So suitable for athletes… A very sophisticated lifestyle purchase.” Intouch Rugby, Northern Ireland, January 2020

Shortly afterwards I was able to work with the editor of the magazine “intouchrugby.com”, who recommends it to his rugby fans.

That's why I was able to send my very first images of saints to Ireland for Christmas 2019.

---