Only a few years ago, photographer and painter Max Piva (*1984, Biella, Italy) was counted among the "young savages stirring up Vienna," but he can now point to an extensive body of work that has been recognized by art collectors and critics alike.

What all his works have in common is that he sees the media he uses only "as a means to an end", to express his visions and his very personal view of the world.

Thus the artist, who was born in Italy and today commutes between Vienna and Portugal, has also turned his love of the sea into an extraordinary series of photographs. For his "Ode to the Sea," shown for the first time at OstLicht, he spent many hours in the whipped-up water to capture the dynamics and superhuman power of the waves with his camera.

In the resulting long exposures, the antagonistic interplay of movement and stillness forms abstract works of art in which fountains shooting out of the spray appear like brushstrokes.

"I let the ocean paint for me through photography," is how Piva describes how he has poetically expressed his "sense of powerlessness but also freedom" evoked by maritime forces.