Eingesperrt

Schell Collection, Graz 2015

The Schell Collection in Graz presented Oskar Stocker’s somber gallery of incarceration. The artist strives to imbue this exhibition and the meaning of the word “imprisoned” with multiple connotations. Portraits of emaciated faces that had to endure being locked out and locked up, these faces are tired, traumatized, and starved. The faces come from the artist’s circle of acquaintances and serve as a ground on which he sensitively draws a destiny that they did not actually experience. These portraits show how isolation or imprisonment can change a human face. In this way Stocker prompts us to think about what it means to be free.