Art / Artist of the Month
Artist of the Month: Ros Koch
This month’s artist is Ros Koch, whose limited edition prints of Acceptance and Breaking the Chain are available through our online shop.
Ros Koch is an artist who doesn’t neatly fall into any categories: she is self-taught and versatile across media, genre and themes. “Having spent many years in non-artistic environments, I still have a lot of exploring and experimenting yet to do,” she says.
“I have taken a fairly unconventional route into the art world,” Ros admits. “I loved drawing and doodling as a child but I never studied art as my parents were quite traditional and felt it was not academic enough, nor a good foundation for a viable career.”
is needed now More than ever
As a result, Ros chose a broad range of school subjects and developed many interests beyond the classroom: experiences that led onto a wide variety of careers, from legal consultant to pilot, criminologist, farmer and parent. She now works full-time as an artist.
Ros works in a variety of mediums and across many genres and themes
The works she is selling through Bristol24/7 are from a recent series of charcoal drawings using live models. “As a working artist, I make time to prioritise drawing from life,” Ros says. “Not only does this practice allow me to interrogate and improve my existing skills as a draftsman but it also helps develop my observational skills. Put in another way, it allows me the opportunity to go beyond the immediate purpose of recording a likeness and to practice capturing the essence of a pose.
“This particular study, Acceptance, started, as with many life drawing sessions, as a chance to practice gestural drawing and to avoid unnecessary detail. The challenge being to know when put down ones drawing tools and leave it be. Thus, both the pose and the process represent acceptance of some sort.
“I think many of us have moments in our lives when we wonder whether what we’re doing is what we planned; whether we are where we want to be; whether we are who we thought we’d become. Often, we have these moments of self-reflection in response to some imbalance, or some source of disquiet or deep sadness. I felt that this pose really spoke to that moment of acceptance – whatever kind of acceptance it is and wherever it may lead.”
Though Ros hasn’t lived in Bristol since she was a child, she feels the city is a spiritual home. Her forefathers started wine merchants Averys of Bristol in 1793, and she names a career highlight as exhibiting her artwork in the historic Avery Cellars. It’s representative of Bristol’s unusual arts scene, which has undergone huge transformations over the decades and has inspired a generation of artists.
“Art has literally, and figuratively, spilled onto the streets with Banksy and other street artists propelling the city of Bristol to international fame,” Ros says. “And then there are artists, like myself, spawned from Bristol but now living in another hemisphere. Wherever I have lived and had the privilege of a home, Bristol has always been – and will always be – my home town.”
Profits from artwork sold through Bristol24/7 will be donated to Help Bristol’s Homeless.“Although I have never experienced homelessness, I have emigrated and moved home multiple times in my life. I know how important it is to have a place to call ‘home’ – no matter how temporary – both from a practical point of view and also from an emotional and psychological perspective,” says Ros. “Everyone needs a secure base from which to build a life.”
See more of Ros’ work at www.roskoch.co.za
See all the work available from Ros and our previous featured artists at b247.staging.proword.press/shop.
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