GRAZ.- Winter Journey, an exhibition of new paintings by renowned Austrian artist Hubert Schmalix, marks the return of art collector and dealer Helmut Reinisch to the historical centre of Graz. More than 200 m2 in a prime location are (once again) converted into a setting for selected art projects. Günther Holler-Schuster, Universalmuseum Joanneum, said about Winter Journey: The new paintings by ever-travelling Hubert Schmalix are, as in the past, determined by ostensible contradictions. Tight rows of geometrically aligned houses present themselves in bright colours – bleached from the sun or lightly covered in snow. With Schmalix, emptiness is never oppressive. The formed spaces are painterly dreams. Reality is kept at bay. The pictorial, on the other hand, is closer, creating a new substantiveness. The vegetative becomes ornamental.