To create rooms with light that allow the spirit to roam free is probably the biggest gift that Nowotny has to give. He does it because man is not in harmony with nature any longer. Hard, repellent urban environments interest him because it is the absence of everything that has formed him and what he has grown out of. He finds himself in the mirror images of the glass facades or simply in the view up into the sky. The clouds that move freely over the entire excesses guide him back to his origins, his paintings. Nowotny lives his art like the seasons when the crown of his tree grows out and develops new branches and is covered with leaves. Time and again the trunk reappears that carries everything else and supports a natural system that allows for something new to develop over and over again. *Oskar Friedl has been an art professional since 1983 when he opened his first gallery in Hamburg, Germany. He lived and worked in Chicago as a curator and gallery owner from 1987 - 2011.