Rosa Loy - From cucumber production to art school
Born Sibille Rauch in Zwickau in 1958, Rosa Loy grew up with her two siblings in a family of gardeners, helping her parents at work every weekend. Because she wanted to continue the family tradition but also felt a certain wanderlust, she went to Berlin to study horticulture at Humboldt University from 1976 to 1981. By early 20s, she had her diploma in her pocket and was working in cucumber production in Altenburg - a job that did not satisfy her in the slightest. Her interest in the visual arts, which she had inherited from her mother, a passionate painter, eventually led Rosa Loy to the Academy of Visual Arts (HGB) in Leipzig, where she studied art under Rolf Felix Müller and became a master student of Rolf Münzner in 1990. In 1993, Rosa Loy, who had already started drawing as a child, became a successful freelance artist.
The mystery of the feminine as a central subject
Rosa Loy mainly paints women; the mystery of the feminine is the major theme of her art. However, the artist is not interested in a war of the sexes: For her, equality does not mean discriminating against men. Her women are self-confident, but thoroughly feminine and also beautiful; Loy's pictures breathe a romantic spirit, but also possess a secretive and sometimes mysterious component. An important source of inspiration for the artist is nature, which she encounters on a daily basis, particularly in her large garden. Not least thanks to her horticultural studies, Loy is an excellent plant expert and can incorporate this knowledge into her artistic work. However, nobody should expect naturalistic depictions of flora: In Rosa Loy's dream worlds, anything is possible; man and nature flow into and merge with one another. Loy sees many parallels between painting and gardening anyway; her art is also inspired by the seasons, by the moods of nature and ultimately resembles the earthworks of a gardener. She digs within herself, searching for a seed that wants to break open and come to light.
Always wide awake and ready for new experiences
Rosa Loy has been married to the painter Neo Rauch since 1985. The couple cultivate a fruitful artistic partnership as equals, in which both create an individual, confident oeuvre, but in which collaboration is also possible: together with her husband, Rosa Loy designed the stage set for the performance of the opera Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival in 2018, whilst pictures by both were on display at a joint exhibition in Seoul, South Korea. For the artists, this is also proof of how the feminine and the masculine can achieve success in thriving co-operation, how new artistic perspectives and spaces can be opened up from similarities and differences. Her admiration for craftsmanship led Rosa Loy to take up ceramics, with which the long-established artist would like to learn something new and expand her portfolio - for the sake of her head and her body.
Rosa Loy lives and works in Leipzig.
Rosa Loy - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
