Eleonore Koch: Subconscious Contemplation - - Exhibitions - Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino is pleased to present Eleonore Koch: Subconscious Contemplation, the gallery's first solo exhibition for artist Eleonore Koch [1926, Germany - 2018, Brazil], in our project room. The exhibition will feature a selection of paintings on paper from the two decades Koch spent in London, between 1968-1989. This exhibition coincides with the recent publishing of a comprehensive catalog on Eleonore Koch's work by Paulo Kuczynski Escritório de Arte in São Paolo, Brazil, featuring texts by Paulo Venancio Filho, Paolo Kuczynski, and Giancarlo Hannud.

Born in Berlin in 1926, Koch moved to Brazil as a young child and began her study of art at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Rio de Janeiro. Afterward, she formally trained under master artists, including Alfredo Volpi, signifying Koch as Volpi's only disciple. Adopting Volpi's use of egg tempera as a predominant medium, Koch would employ the richness of the pigments and textural brushwork in still life and landscape paintings. Unlike Volpi and many of her mid-century contemporaries, she would never embrace complete abstraction, always including the figure in her work, albeit never the human figure.

Koch's work favors a formality of composition and a saturated, vibrant color palette that, for all of its natural subject matter, eschews the natural and organic. Whether depicting a garden landscape or interior scene, Koch edits out the extraneous detail and flattens the pictorial plane, pulling focus to the few objects she chooses to place in our gaze. This careful arranging of objects punctuating vast empty, flat spaces of color begs observation and contemplation. Objects so routinely a part of our surroundings as to become unseen - the garden steps, the living room chair, the tabletop vase - are thrust out of our subconsciousness and made to be seen, to be considered.

Eleonore Koch’s work is included in several public and private collections including Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Universidad de São Paulo (MAC-USP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo, Brazil; André Mastrobuono collection, Brazil; Clara Sancovsky collection, Brazil; Ladi Biezus collection, Brazil; Marta and Paulo Kuczynski collection, São Paulo, Brazil; Orandi Momesso collection, Brazil; Renato Rosseti collection; Rita Michaan collection; Eduardo Sancovsky collection; Roberto Dorf collection; Bernardo Dorf collection; Regina and Luis Meyer collection; Olga and Leon Klein collection; Liane Bielawski collection; Claudine Chammah collection; and Regina Brasi collection.

Opening reception: Thursday, September 21, 6-8 pm

Exhibition dates: September 21 – October 12, 2023