Lara Koch
The Moving Moment
Working in monochrome across a range of print techniques, sculpture and oil on canvas, Lara Koch’s art marks the moving moment; the moment that is a movement. Her diverse range of expressions – from finely worked yet semi-automatic drawings, to inky depths and diaphanous fields of pigment; from rhythmical overlaying of linear designs, to cut up compositions in paint – convey an existential charge, mirroring the actions that have made them. Her work longs for sensual moments, physical fusion and connectedness; memoirs, frozen movement, intertwined rustling bodies, a kiss. It seeks the language of daydreaming, music, nature and poetry to convey the incomprehensible essence of being, creating art as a moment of lost self.
Koch’s works echo the rhythms and biologies of life.
For TheArtists Koch presents works made since 2018 in a variety of printed techniques, from gestural monotypes such as Dance sur papier that directly imprint the touch of the artist or which, like Oder 1 and 2 build up a mysterious intensity of pigment, to lino cuts of gossamer delicacy and lithographs full of figurative fluidity and flourish. In their ebb and flow, darkness and light and their formal fecundity, Koch’s works echo the rhythms and biologies of life, exploring man’s relationship to nature and connections between inner and outer worlds. In this they tread in the footsteps of Klee, not only in taking a line for a walk, but following his philosophy that “The artist is human, himself nature; part of nature within natural space.”
Other influences and correspondences come to mind through Koch’s draughtsmanship. Densely crammed and exaggerated faces recall works by Ensor or Grosz. Picasso’s influence looms large in the most graphic of her works, meanwhile Koch’s painting Rêve and her photo collage Kalon suggest a homage to the collages of Hannah Höch.
Text by Gair Burton
Biography Lara Koch
born 1993 in Munich, Germany
Education
since 2019 Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany / Painting and Graphics, Class Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt
2019 Bachelor of Arts at the University of Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany
Exhibitions (selection)
2021
Supermarkt Frische Lieferung, Group Show, Rewe Premium Munich, Germany
2020
Galerie Rodzlø, Berlin, Germany
ART LAB, Galerie Benjamin Eck, Munich, Germany
Der River, Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, Germany
2019
ÜBER:BRÜCKEN, Delphi Galerie, Freiburg, Germany
Kalashnikov Galerie, Munich, Germany
Abulia, Lou and Louis Galerie, Munich, Germany
Superbooks, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
2018
Image Itself, Studio H is the Shit, Munich, Germany
Photo18, Praterinsel, Munich, Germany
Lara Koch in her studio.
Works by Lara Koch
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Undine
2021 / Feather, brass, plaster, wood (moving sculpture) / 70 x 23 x 20 cm / 27.6 x 9.1 x 7.9 in
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Blue
2022 / Heliogravure on paper / 45 x 30 cm / 17.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Untitled
2018 / Lithography / 47 x 32 cm / 18.5 x 12.6 in (framed)
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sold
Untitled
2020 / Monotype / each 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Sois Mon Air
2018 / Linoleum print on paper / each 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Kalon
2020 / Art Print / each 75 x 52 cm / 29.5 x 20.5 in (framed)
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Odor
2019 / Monotype / each 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Untitled
2018 / Lithography / 62 x 42 cm / 24.4 x 16.5 in (framed)
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Untitled
2019 / Monotype / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Danse sur papier
2018 / Monotype / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Nelipot
2019 / Monotype / 40 x 30 cm / 15.7 x 11.8 in (framed)
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Untitled
2020 / Ink on paper / 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 in (framed)
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Rêve
2019 / Oil on canvas / 45 x 30 cm / 17.7 x 11.8 in