Rosa Loy: Green Heart
Gallery Baton presents Green Heart, the solo exhibition of internationally renowned painter Rosa Loy (b. 1958), from September 12th to October 18th at the Apgujeong-dong exhibit space.
Rosa stands as the main axis of NLS (New Leipzig School) which is evaluated as the 21st century's first bona fide artistic phenomenon and has attracted the attention of the international art market. She was also the wife of Neo Rauch (b. 1960) who is ranked as a globally celebrated artist.
Rosa depicts women. While Edgar Degas (1834-1917) depicted women engrossed in something like dance, and Lisa Yuskavage (b. 1962) emphasized social conformity or natural characteristics of women like those revealing voluptuous bodies with erotic expressions on their faces, Rosa depicts women in her paintings as full of self-confidence or active subjects who are in the center of the action. Dominating the center of the scene, the characters are wearing colorful costumes or working cloths and are doing something with confident expression and behavior. This conspicuous depiction portrays the artist's interpretation of women as those who actively pursue the realization of their dreams and those who aid each other in living an independent life. In particular, this approach presents privately but more strongly the feministic element at the forefront. For example, in her works the subject that helps female is another female being, the pursuit of beauty is self-satisfactory, and she is depicted as the principal agent of labor and active pioneer.
Through a fascinating device of women, Rosa releases her own unique painting style, mixing selectively the regional characteristics and historical background of Leipzig that had formally been East German area, tangible and intangible relics of the communist era and fantasy, the heritage of Socialist Realism, Freudianism and Feminism. Arrangement of figures and objects in a way that is difficult to tell the story, ambiguity of time and space, detailed description of the subject from observation, unique delicacy, mystery, romance, and femininity suffer nothing by comparison when showing why she is positioned as the key artist of NLS.
Born in Leipzig in 1958, Rosa Loy completed her BFA and MFA at the Academy of Visual Art in Leipzig. She participated in numerous exhibitions in various art museums around the world in the topic of Leipzig painters, such as the joint exhibition, Behind the Gardens (2011), with Neo Rauch at ESSL Museum in Austria. In addition, her works are included as the collection of major art institutions and organizations like MoMA, MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art, LA), and Deutsche Bank Collection.
