BIO
Erwin Rios was born and raised in Chile. He has lived and worked in Austria since his early youth. During his studies of art history and twenty-one years of experience in the art field (exhibitions, organization, and program management), he has simultaneously and continuously developed as a painter. Not professionally at first, but out of an inner need to order thoughts and emotions and to transport them from the inside to the outside. With acrylic paints, sand, cement, and other mate-rials, he brings his concerns to canvas. Balance is created through a few coordinated layers of color and texture.

ARTIST STATEMENT
For me, painting is a living process. It is a complex, demanding work full of emotions, helpful to organize and share my thoughts and feelings. It is also a way of saying something when words are no longer enough. Therefore, my paintings are a very personal expression of topics that con-cern me. One of the issues I deal with is our living space. Deforestation, flooding, drought ... the news is imprinting in my subconscious and throwing questions. Memories from my childhood and landscapes from today... will they still be there tomorrow? What will they be like? How is our quality of life affected by the way we interact with nature, what interrelationships arise...? The series "Moments" explores these questions that affect our environment. I capture moments, moods and reality mixed with memories and fantasy. This in the awareness that nothing is as it was, and nothing will remain as it is. We carry the past in our memory, the future in our responsibility.