Franz Riess
Painter · Cinematographer

Franz
Riess

Paintings that remember rather than depict.

Oil paintings made from memory and inner vision — landscapes, mountains, and the sea, by an artist who spent a lifetime behind the camera.

Oil painting: a single blue wave breaking over a grey pebble beach
Oil on canvas80 × 100 cm

About

On a life spent framing light, and painting from memory.

Portrait of Franz Riess outdoors, wearing a flat cap and glasses
Franz Riess

My artistic path is shaped by decades of work as a cinematographer — for advertising films, cinema and television productions, and documentaries.

That work carried me across nearly every continent: through Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa. Places, cultures and encounters that lastingly formed my inner archive of images.

I have painted since the 1980s. The pictures arise without any external model. They are fed by memory, by experience, and by inner vision.

My love of nature, spiritual questions, and formative encounters — with the shamanism of South America, impressions from Hollywood, meetings with the Dalai Lama, and the sacred places of Christianity — flow into the work in many layers.

Behind the camera

A few examples of my work in film.

Feature films

  • Giulia Super
  • Etwas am Herzen
  • Der Bessere gewinnt
  • Der tote Onkel
  • Das doppelte Leben
  • Die kurzen Reisen des Herrn Agios
  • Das Geheimnis der Sherpas

Documentaries

  • Der Dom, der Halbmond und die Kreuzritter
  • Töten für Allah
  • Arbeitsplatz Stephansdom
  • Hanna Reitsch
  • Grüß Gott und heil Hitler
  • Das Burgenland, ein Grenzfall
  • Der Justizpalastbrand
  • Der Glanz des alten Adels
  • Die letzten Stunden einer Kaiserin (Sissi und die Anarchisten)
  • Der Wiener Kreis

Also

  • Commercials for cinema and television
Contact

Get in touch

For questions about the work, or to inquire about a painting, write directly.

riess.cam@aon.at