Artist Spotlight: Malcolm Koch

We have quite a variety of art here at ART LOGIC, and given that we recently uploaded our 954th piece to this site, we also have quite a lot of art. Since there are so many different artists with such unique art styles, we thought it might be useful to talk about some of them right here on the blog so you can get a taste of what we have to offer.

As I mentioned just above, we have quite the range of art styles here at ART LOGIC, and none are quite like Malcolm Koch’s. But I’ll get to that in a minute, after I tell you a tiny bit about the artist himself. Born in Adelaide, Malcolm grew up in a deaf family, which meant that he had ready access to very visually aware mentors. He studied design, but has had his heart taken over by his art, developing what he calls ‘Membrane Art’.

So what is ‘Membrane Art’? Well, they are paintings, but also sculpture, in a way. The canvas is loosely folded together (concertinaed), thereby creating an undulating surface which almost looks like a ruffle from edge-on. Malcolm then drips paint onto these loose folds so that it runs down the sides of the ‘hills’. As the paint runs over the surface and pools, it takes on three-dimensional properties, drying in mounds and depressions. Malcolm twists, turns and folds his canvas in many directions over many months. The final step is putting the canvas onto a frame (this is called stretching in the art world) – most artists start out with a stretched canvas, whereas by stretching the piece after the paint has been applied, Malcolm can then use the stretching process like an editing step, choosing which part of the canvas to utilise as his final piece.

There’s something almost geological surrounding some of his works, and indeed, Malcolm cites his inspiration as the spectacular Flinders Ranges, found right here in South Australia. He says that it was the geological formations of these mountains that made him think how unnatural it was to paint on a flat surface.

An interesting aspect of Malcolm’s art is the factor time plays in the resulting piece. If you study it closely, you can tell from the final canvas the time and patience required to allow the paint to run and dry, and how much time was taken between each set of folds.

While most of his pieces have titles that suggest a subject, Malcolm tells us that his pieces are non-representative; he wants the viewer to project their own meaning onto the piece almost entirely. The titles may tell you what he sees any particular piece to be about, but the art is open to other interpretations. One thing he does hold on to, however, is that art is about communication, the exchange of ideas and emotions which makes life meaningful.

These pieces are exploratory and innovative, as if Malcolm is stretching his art to experiment and see where this will lead him. Malcolm is on an exciting adventure!