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The Art of Josta
Austrian artist JOSTA, originally from Vienna and shaped by a career in film and television, is developing a unique style within contemporary painting that combines expressionism with abstract art. His portraits of celebrities such as Woody Allen, Helmut Qualtinger, Marilyn Monroe, Elon Musk, and Hedy Lamarr feature thick layers of oil paint, often applied with a palette knife or broad brushstrokes, creating a relief-like texture. His works are characterized by a vibrant, high-contrast color palette—turquoise with red, yellow, green, pink, or violet—that captures the inner worlds of their subjects. Spontaneous splashes of color and dripping strokes lend his images a dynamic energy, inspired by his theater and film-drenched background.
JOSTA's style fits within contemporary art that has been revitalizing expressive and material techniques since the late 20th century, similar to the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georg Baselitz, who deconstruct cultural icons. Unlike Basquiat, he relies on textured surfaces instead of graffiti, and unlike Baselitz, he avoids reversed perspectives. He draws parallels to Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in his use of color as a means of expression, yet remains figurative and uses colorful, pop-cultural palettes, making his works more accessible.
JOSTA's works are characterized by contrasting colors that reflect emotional depth—like melancholy in Woody Allen or vision in Elon Musk—as well as by textured materiality that creates a tangible presence. His versatility, from portraits to charcoal works to car sketches, reflects his Viennese childhood and artistic passion. He combines traditional portraiture with modern abstraction, bridging the gap between classical and contemporary expression, and invites reflection on pop culture and identity.
A painting is a silent story waiting for the viewer to bring it to life with their own eyes and experiences.
JOSTA
Actual Work
Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 120 cm /39.4 x 47.2 inch
"We Could Have Had It All"
In this large-scale portrait - 100 × 120 cm, a canvas that dominates the room like Adele's voice fills a stadium - Josta condenses the essence of the British singer into a synesthetic experience. The composition centers the face in a close-up intimacy that compels the viewer to delve into the depths of the blue iris, where reflections refract like broken chords.
Josta's painting technique unfolds with a choreographed spontaneity: First, he applies thick layers of acrylic paint with broad palette knives, modeling skin and hair in a relief-like texture - an impasto that captures light and casts shadows. Then come drips and splashes, applied with controlled precision, allowing the paint to flow across the surface like improvised vocalizations. Diluted glazes in cobalt blue and umber contrast with opaque cadmium yellow and carmine accents, creating a vibrant chromatic landscape that reflects Adele's emotional range: from the fragile introspection in "Someone Like You" to the eruptive power of "Set Fire to the Rain".
The background, a nuanced gradient of peach hues, serves as an acoustic sounding board—subtle yet vibrant. Adele, whose album 21 (2011) is one of the best-selling albums of all time with over 31 million copies sold worldwide and garnered 15 Grammys, is not iconized here, but demystified: Josta reveals the woman behind the legend, whose successes - 25 (2015, 23 million sales), 30 (2021) - arose from personal catharsis.
A work that dissolves the boundaries between figurative portraiture and abstract expressionism; a must-have for curators seeking contemporary pop art with psychological depth.
