Exhibition: Between Light and Lines

With the exhibition “Movement – Between Line and Light,” the Haus Wassermann Museum Niederdorf is dedicating an impressive show to South Tyrolean artist Toni Walder, exploring the tension between watercolor painting and drawing.
Walder understands watercolor as an art of light – and at the same time of risk. In his works, water becomes both partner and adversary, color an expression of inner movement. His landscapes, animal depictions, and atmospheric scenes reveal a deep connection to nature—not as a mere motif, but as a living space of energy, change, and breath.
Walder's watercolors follow in the tradition of great masters such as William Turner and Emil Nolde, but at the same time bear their own quiet signature: the struggle for the fleeting, the visualization of the invisible. In works such as Monte Cristal, an “atmospheric zipper” emerges between heaven and earth, in which light, fog, and stone merge into one another.
In addition to watercolor paintings, the exhibition also features graphite and charcoal drawings—studies of nudes, portraits, and body landscapes. These works refer to Walder's intensive study of drawing, influenced by courses and master classes with Prof. Walter Strobl, Prof. Piotr Sonnwend, Prof. Irsara, and Rafael Zielinski, among others. Here, the line reveals itself as the origin of all pictorial activity—as an elementary movement between control and letting go, as a visible trace of thought and feeling.