Born in 1937 in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Peter Krawagna grew up in Velden and, after finishing school, learned the craft of painting from his father. In 1954, he entered the Art School in Linz, where he studied under Herbert Dimmel. During this time, he engaged deeply with the work of Kokoschka, Corinth, Liebermann, and Van Gogh, and created his first portraits and landscapes.

From 1958 to 1961, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Herbert Boeckl. Since the mid-1960s, he has maintained an active exhibition schedule and has been invited to numerous art fairs. Regular study trips have taken him to Italy, Greece, Africa, India, and France, where he developed distinct series of works. Peter Krawagna lives and works in Krumpendorf on Lake Wörthersee.

At first glance, his works appear radically abstract, detached from any visible reality. Yet upon closer inspection, they reveal themselves as concentrated impressions of landscapes. They are reduced essences of real places and atmospheric conditions of light. Fleeting moments are condensed into black lines and fields, as well as into vibrant compositions of luminous natural colors.

These elements structure newly emerging pictorial spaces, emphasize the process of reduction, and lend the works both a painterly and a graphic dimension. In this way, landscapes come into being that do not depict, but rather evoke memory. They are poetic condensations of what has been seen, focused on the essence of a uniquely personal way of perceiving.