(Innsbruck 1932–2011 Vienna) “Puglia Marina-Murge-9”, signed and dated Prachensky 79, titled, signed and dated on the reverse Markus Prachensky 1979, acrylic on canvas, 110 x 150 cm, stretcher, (K)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Germany
... The question suggests itself why the origins of pictures should be described at all, since in the end they are not recognizable for the spectator anyway. One of the reasons I have just pointed out: in order to create an awareness sharpened by these pictures, thanks to which their source – in this case Apulia – can be perceived in a new and better way. This holds especially true for Prachensky himself: in a certain sense, each picture he has accomplished modifies the landscape from which he started out. That is why, during the entire journey, he could not but constantly re-associate the pictures stemming from his long-lasting exploration of Apulia with the landscape. What has resulted from this process is the series Puglia marina Murge.
These are tremendously powerful, dynamic pictures, with vigorous layering in the upper sections, the upright beams sometimes almost alluding to the form of a cross; yet this conclusion of the Apulia series can least be referred to realized landscape perspectives; rather, these works are a synthesis bidding farewell. Markus once mentioned – not without sounding a typical note of caution with regard to such metaphors – that our journey together sometimes unreeled before his inner eye like a film when he was working.
This comparison prompted me to think that the aspect of movement in his pictures – the splashes and flow of the paint beyond a picture’s margin, in short, the traces of the painter’s swift movements – could be described as a visible lapse of time and thus as a dimension for which there are hardly any other means of expression in painting. His pensive grumbling was not encouraging at all, and neither was his terse commentary: “Oh well… well… if you want to put it that way!”
“Eventually you see in the same way in which you paint. The pictures are stronger, they almost devour the landscape.” This is the true terminus of a long-lasting, dynamic interdependence between Prachensky and Apulia. After this final re-association, the focus is solely on the pictures as such. A picture is a habitat of its own, with laws and limits; here everything that has become an inextricable entanglement in the conscious mind due to an intimate knowledge of the landscape has to subordinate itself. And the splashes and flows are obliged to nothing but the idea of a picture.
Quoted from: Wolfgang Fleischer, Markus Prachensky, published by Löcker, Vienna 1990