About me

Elisabeth Edinger-Strasser: Where mountains touch the soul

If you ever wander through the Alpine valleys of Scheffau am Wilden Kaiser, you might come across a studio where splashes of paint dance with the same wild energy as the surrounding peaks. This is the creative sanctuary of Elisabeth Edinger-Strasser—an artist whose works seem like a heartfelt conversation between the Tyrolean landscape and the human soul.

Elisabeth was born and raised on the Schösserhof, a mountain farm in Söll. Her childhood was shaped by the rhythms of nature. Mornings began with the clinking of milk cans, afternoons with hikes through meadows that looked as if God had spilled a box of wildflowers, and evenings with a stillness that only the mountains can teach. Here, amidst haystacks and horizon lines, she learned to see art not as something one creates , but as something one discovers —a truth that still pulsates in her work today.

Elisabeth's creative world is as expansive as the Kaiser Mountains themselves. In her studio, one finds canvases filled with emotions that defy words—swirling purples for unspoken heartaches, cobalt blue streaks for moments of quiet clarity. But her art isn't limited to painting. She shapes clay into vessels that seem to contain ancient whispers, breathes new life into the medieval tradition of book illumination, and once transformed a weathered barn door into a mural celebrating Alpine folklore. "Creativity," she says with a smile, "is how we listen to the parts of ourselves that can't speak."

Perhaps her most delicate project is the Malort Wilder Kaiser , a luminous space where children's imaginations can flow as freely as mountain streams. Inspired by Arno Stern's philosophy, this isn't an art class, but a sanctuary where young people can paint without judgment, rules, or the pressure to be "good." Watching her here, you recognize the peasant girl who once drew sheep on icy windows and now fosters the creative courage of the next generation.

What makes Elisabeth's work so special is not technical perfection, but its raw honesty. Each work is like a diary entry in color and texture—a stormy abstract painting created during a sleepless night, a delicate ceramic bowl formed in a moment of quiet hope, or a gilded manuscript page that holds more secrets than a medieval castle. She creates not to impress, but to understand : her own joys, fears, and the quiet revolutions of the heart that we all experience but struggle to put into words.

When asked about her eclectic approach, she laughs: "Growing up on a farm, you learn that everything has a purpose—reclaimed wood, bent nails, even the mud on your boots. I think I approach creativity the same way. Why limit yourself to one medium when there's a whole world of possibilities to say, 'This is what it feels like to be alive' ?"

Today, between teaching wide-eyed children how to mix "storm gray" and molding clay in her sun-drenched studio, Elisabeth remains connected to the landscape that shaped her. Her art is an invitation—to pause, to feel deeply, and to remember that even in life's most chaotic moments, beauty awaits to be brought forth, with every brushstroke, every pinch of clay, every heartfelt splash of color.

Would you like to see the world through Elisabeth's eyes? She would probably tell you: "Pick up a paintbrush. It's not only the mountains here that can speak."