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Artists
Roth-Koch, Kirsten
Kirsten Roth-Koch
Bio
In 1978 I was born in Schiedam, The Netherlands, where my parents were the leaders of a Pentecostal congregation. During my youth I moved several times to finally end up in the East of the Province of Groningen, where I grew to value the peace, space and freedom this area offers.
In 2003 I graduated from the city of Groningen’s Art Academy Minerva in painting and drawing. In 2004 I married Mark Roth and at this moment (2013) we live in Almere. The past few years I have made illustrations for elementary schools, together with my husband.
My Work
I make drawings, paintings and sometimes photos of moments in time and space. My style is realistic; I make recognizable images. I am strongly attracted to film and Impressionism. My art heroes are among others Henri Matisse, David Hockney, George Breitner and Daniel Richter.
Most of the time people feature in my drawings. I often make film-like images and try to evoke a certain tension in my compositions that is similar to the tension in moving images, resulting in an experience of film in a still image. Besides this I make portraits of people sleeping or taking a bath, who are as it were outside the ‘normal’ perception of time and experience a kind of inertia. I like to stop the flow of time, either in a filmic fragment or by making a photo cut-out, a drawing or graphic work. It varies from time to time which medium I use.
Every human being is unique and everybody goes through life alone and sees something each moment of their lives. When you would capture all of these moments in small photographs and spread them out on the floor, you would get an endless line of pictures. Once in a while I try to capture one of these moments, e.g. in a big-sized drawing of 2 x 1,5 m. so that it spend a lot of time making it. What we make has value, because we have put time into it, touched something and by this alone have given it meaning.
Motivation
My choice to be an artist is connected to my view of life as something special, which we should not let go by unnoticed or be absorbed by chasing after money.
It is not my intention to convince others of certain ideas. It is my way of viewing life that is captured in form as colours and other materials go through my hands. My work flows from the wonder how beautifully human beings have been made in their relationships to their surroundings and time. I am especially impressed by the complexity of creation. Now that we as humans discover more and more about this and have built our own Internet and computer reality, I start to see all the more how extremely difficult it is to make something so complex. How enormously creative God is! There is something about life that cannot be expressed in usefulness: life is not of commercial value but rather an amazing expression by a fantastic person.
1. Film Images 1-7,18 x 135 cm (including a white frame), acrylics on panel. On small panels I have painted seven consecutive images from a movie. These together form 7/24 second of the movie Trapeze. We see a man walking. When you put a film on pause, you see an image that lacks any logic. Through time and the images before and after coherence evolves, as in many things in life.
2. 2002 nr 1, 60 x 75 cm in a silver frame, oil on panel. Can a painting be like an exciting movie? How as a painter do you suggest a story in one still image? Is it possible to capture time in a painting? Here you see a snapshot of two people in a big empty space. The person in the foreground is partly outside the image. Your eyes move from this person and his long shadow to the left to the light spots on the wall. From there they move to the man in the back and the door. Your gaze starts to roam around and you begin to make up your own story. Emptiness, space and light play a role in this story and you can let your thoughts follow their own direction.
3. Innervisions, 130 x 140 cm, chalk, charcoal and acrylics on paper. Lying in the water, relaxed and dreaming. Her eyes are closed and you can wonder about what the woman is thinking. Her inner time differs from that of the clock.
4. New Dreams, 120 x 200 cm, chalk, charcoal and acrylics on paper. Sometimes moments occur in your life when something new comes into being, which you had not thought would still happen. A miracle is not impossible: the birds take flight. This drawing is also available in a smaller size.
5. Tirza is Dreaming, ca. 130 x 100 cm, chalk, charcoal and acrylics on paper.