The self-taught artist Hermann Serient, born in Melk in 1935, is both a painter and a jazz musician.
In his works he devoted himself in the 60s mostly to satirical motifs. From the 1970s onwards, he increasingly dealt with social and environmental themes.
Serient takes a stand on technologisation, environmental destruction and collective denial. He also likes to take a look at traditions and anecdotes from rural life in southern Burgenland. A decisive place in his work is occupied by the oil paintings, which remind us of works by the Fantastic Realists. In the "Heanzen" cycle, which was created in the 1970s, he sets a monument to the inhabitants of parts of southern Burgenland and their traditional, sometimes idiosyncratic habits. As artistic means he uses the grotesque, alienates people and landscapes. The bizarre figures, bleak landscapes and buildings are typical features of his work.
The Landesgalerie of Eisenstadt dedicated a retrospective to Hermann Serient in 2005.
