For Alois Mosbacher, the forest is also an ambiguous topos in the history of art and ideas. His painted forest landscapes have little in common with the traditional nature idyll: the inhabitants of the forest have disappeared, and the trees, compiled from various trunks and branches, create confusion. Mosbacher's painting appears narrative, with the imagery driving the viewer's associations in many directions—absurd, surreal, deeply dark. In oil, charcoal, and pencil, Mosbacher also makes technique and material a theme, analyzing the materiality of wood in expansive works, thereby demonstrating the possibilities of contemporary representational painting. Intensive media research in print and online accompanies Mosbacher's artistic work, with photos from political current events suddenly breaking into his natural scenes, painted as fleetingly as unprocessed traumas. Against the ugliness and cruelty of the present time, the trees of a ghostly forest fade.