PETER GRIC

                                            What if "Gynoid" was a cast-bronze...

Peter Gric or Petr Gric (born 1968, Brno, Czechoslovakia) is Austrian painter, drawer and illustrator originally from Czech Republic. In his art appear motives of futuristic landscapes and architecture, biomechanical surrealism and fantastic realism. Gric is member of the art groups Libellule and Labyrinth.

Petr Gric was born in 1968 in Brno, former Czechoslovakia. He was the only child of artists Ludmila Gric (1942, Pitín) and Jaroslav Gric (1937, Brno).They already supported his talent in painting and drawing, which he exhibited when he was young. In 1980 he traveled with his parents under the pretense described as vacation travel, they emigrated through Hungary and Yugoslavia toAustria. They spend one year in the countryside of Reichenau an der Rax. They soon moved to Linz where Gric finished primary school and studied graphic design at the Höhere Technische Lehranstalt. In 1988 he moved to Vienna where he began to study under Arik Brauer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He finished his studies with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1993. While still in college, he participated in several exhibitions and started to sell his work successfully. In 1996, Gric presented his work about the connection of painting and computer graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He has two daughters Emilia (b. 2002) and Natalia (b. 2005). Later in 2009, he moved from Vienna to Höflein an der Hohen Wand. 

Working as an artist for a living, he creates new works irregularly. Before exhibiting, he works intensively, but often doesn't create anything for weeks and only experiments with graphic software and geometry for his new work. Smaller formats works take him a few days or weeks to create. Large works take him months to finish. However, many of them are in progress for a very long time and only finished after several yearsGric's painting are technically precise. He uses oil paint, acrylic paint, or combinations thereof. He also uses airbrushes. Most of his work he designs in graphic software and the more complex pieces, he models in 3D software. Despite his work in computer graphics, it is not his primary medium. Some of his paintings are several meters in size.

His art is a combination of futuristic landscapes and architecture, biomechanical surrealism and fantastic realism. It's very airy, combining known thoughts with fantastic elements and geometrical structures. Before his artistic career, he was influenced by science fiction illustrators Chris Moore, Peter Elson and by Star Wars movies. However, his biggest influence was surrealistic paintings by his father, and artists like Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Samuel Bak, Alfred Kubin, Hans Ruedi Giger and later Zdzisław Beksiński, Odd Nerdrum and De Es Schwertberger.Most of his inspirations are from nature and architecture, but he is also fascinated by erosion, abstract geometry and women's bodies. Gric creates visions and fantasy that he himself can't explain. Like Beksiński, he doesn't care about interpretations of his works