Biography of Barbara Buttinger-Foerster

Caught on the heavy Muehlviertel granite
Infected by the silver of the Tuscan light 
Brooding on own and foreign eggs
A mixture of wanderlust and homesickness
Mother and worshipper of grandmothers
Anachronistic fringe figure

Oldest of five siblings, since childhood intimately connected with the Mühlviertel  –  archaic land of stones, plum trees and jaybirds…
From a young age, there was an inclination towards art…the dream to study painting in Italy was fulfilled. At the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence, I strolled over traces of the past. I found my second spiritual home in Tuscany. Here I encountered my spiritual teacher, Father Giovanni Vannucci, who opened my Christian worldview to a cosmic one and transformed it into a feminine view. I also met my painting mentor, Margherita Pavesi-Mazzoni.

Back in Linz I studied sculpture with Erwin Reiter. The Summer Academy of Salzburg was also formative.
The marriage to sculptor Andreas Buttinger-Caspar was followed by the births of our two children and the renovation of the old “Haselbergerhof” in Hagenberg in the Mühlkreis, Upper Austria.

Afterwards I instructed art and crafts for a number of years. The next step was to train as a movement analyst and therapist. I have worked for years with mentally and physically handicapped people. My early interest in situational art became a part of my work, as did the trust in the resources of peculiarity and difference.

Fate had me encounter the Lakota Medicine man, Archie Fire Lame Deer. For many years my husband and I obtained direct access into the spiritual world of the original inhabitants of North America through him. This experience created a connection with my own roots here in this land of stone, where so many witnesses continue to carry prehistoric culture. In 2005, I traveled to the Sundance on the Rosebud-Reservation in South Dakota, USA…

In 2000, my husband and I founded the “Zaunreiter-Academy, a place of Connection through Art and Spirituality”. This was the beginning of our network with the same purpose.
Regular exhibitions since 1999.