Today we’d like to introduce you to Ulrike Kaiser.
Hi Ulrike, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My journey with art started when I was a teenager on one of my travels to London, and ever since, my relationship to art has been unfolding. I’ve always felt an urge, to create: from drawing and photography to dance and even designing my own clothes. Art has been a way of making sense of the world and myself.
I began painting in my early twenties. In 2005, I was invited for my first solo exhibition by Gallery Steiner, a contemporary gallery in Vienna who – in addition to exhibiting well-established global artists – provided a platform for young up-and-coming artists. I am eternally grateful to the owner of that gallery, Corinna Steiner, for that very first opportunity.
Between 2005 and 2010, I presented my work in a series of solo and group exhibitions in Vienna and Prague. My work was predominantly in a figurative style. Even then, I gravitated toward close-up, large-scale interpretations that hinted at abstraction.
For my first 15 years as an artist, I remained an autodidact. I explored art on my own terms. In 2010, I joined my husband as he moved to Washington DC for his new job engagement and took a step that changed everything: I enrolled at the George Washington University Corcoran College of Art + Design to formally study Drawing and Painting. Those four years at the Corcoran gave shape to my instincts and language to my vision. At the Corcoran, I had the privilege of learning from professors who profoundly influenced my work. For example, Judy Southerland encouraged me to turn my personal life story into visual narrative—a guiding principle in my painting practice today. Mira Hecht taught me to deconstruct how we see reality, helping me distill its emotional and visual essence into abstraction.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Relocating to a new country, language, and artistic landscape in my mid-thirties was both inspiring and isolating for me, potentially transforming my creative process itself.
I’ve learned that painting isn’t just about capturing light and color—it’s also about navigating self-doubt, time constraints, and the pressure to perform. Over time, these challenges have become part of my process: each painting carries the imprint of overcoming, and that resilience infuses my work with deeper presence. As a wife and mother of two, my family and my art are inseparable. I find creative renewal in time spent with them outdoors—watching the play of light, the rhythm of tides, the cycle of seasons. Working from my home studio offers flexibility and freedom, allowing me to balance commissions, exhibitions, and daily life.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an abstract oil painter originally from Austria, now based in Washington, D.C., where I’ve lived and worked since 2010. My current body of work consists of elemental and atmospheric oil paintings on canvas, finished with a glossy sheen. Inspired by sea and sky, I distill reflections of nature—drawn from direct observation and memories of the Chesapeake Bay, the East Coast, and the Mediterranean—back into my studio.
Each painting invites a return to a specific moment and place. I invite all the viewers of my paintings to travel with me—to the open ocean, to the vibrant landscapes of Le Marche in eastern Italy, or to the shifting blues of the fjords around Pont Aven in Brittany. Infused into my abstractions are the powerful colors and emotions of these environments, captured through observation and recollection.
Being an introvert, like most fellow artists, I was proud that my work was recognized officially. In 2011, I received the Linda and Douglas Rosenbaum Scholarship during my studies at the Corcoran College — an affirmation that this path, though unexpected, was mine to follow.
In 2012, the Austrian Embassy in Washington hosted my first solo show in the US—featuring a full cross-section of my work from both Europe and the U.S. I also exhibited at the New York Art Expo and the Miami Red Dot Art Show in 2016.
More recently, one of my paintings exhibited at the Katzen Art Center at American University in Washington, DC, in collaboration with Transformer Gallery Benefit Auction Gala. Currently I am showing my latest abstract atmospheric paintings at Illuminations, Inc. Studio in Washington, DC.
I am passionate about what I do and I often get absorbed by my work, in particular when I get into my “flow of painting” where nothing around me matters and I fully live in my paintings. What drives my creativity is the urge to capture abstract elements, inspired by nature, both its beauty and nourishment as well its unpredictability. The most rewarding part is when viewers connect with my art. Art is invention with it’s own language.
For those interested in the technical details, my works are painted on cotton or linen canvas, ranging from 16″×20″ to 36″×48″. I also create smaller pieces on wooden panels (8″×8″ to 11″×14″) and offer both solo exhibitions and commissioned works. Many clients in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia region visit my studio, and I sometimes consult with them in their homes to select pieces from my portfolio.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I grew of in a very rural part of Austria. Pursuing a career in art seemed like an unusual or even exotic dream. Yet perhaps it was exactly that quiet, earthy landscape—painted in tones of burnt amber and raw sienna—that shaped my creative instincts. Interestingly, the region I grew up in, was also home to other great Austrian masters, like Egon Schiele. Maybe we have something in common. While the people around me were often introverted and reserved, I found my voice through creative expression. Art became my language, my way of connecting with the world.
In the 1990s, after the Iron Curtain between the former Soviet Union and Western Europe fell and borders reopened, I crossed into the Czech Republic for the first time. Just 12 miles from home, the town of Český Krumlov became an unlikely turning point—it was there where I bought my first artist-grade oil paints. Back home, I began experimenting with them. Then, at the age of seventeen, a shoestring trip to London brought me face to face with the luminous, sweeping works of J.M.W. Turner. That visit was the ignition—the spark for my fascination with art. From then on, I was hooked: on art, and on the transformative power of seeing.
Pricing:
- 40X30in $2,500.00 (with frame)
- 48x36in $3,300.00 (with frame)
- 24x30in $1,200 (with frame)
- 8x8in $150
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.ulrikekaiser.at/UK/Home.html
- Instagram: @ulrikekaiser_art
- Facebook: @artistulrikekaiser
- LinkedIn: Artist@UlrikeKaiser_art
