In reference to my mark-making approach, I was asked, “Why are you painting blindly when you have good drafting skills and vision?”
Mark-making is inherently imprecise; nobody can be certain which atoms they are engaging with. When you consider things at that level, you realise that everything is just a rough estimate.
I compare the act of creating “art” to the moment when memories, thoughts, and instinctual or primal desires come together to form a single, cohesive reality. My artworks are created in three dimensions, even though we perceive reality in two. The depth we believe we can see is merely an illusion constructed by our minds. I focus on the two-dimensional visual plane because it encapsulates a profoundly human experience – revealing a truth about how mark-making is blind.
Recent copper pieces in detail, with the marks structurally bound to the surface by the drill holes and patina.
If the marks had just been made on a ‘level’ surface, they would not have seemed so structurally bound.
Singulart interview
Singulart, a Paris-based, online contemporary art shop, recently interviewed me about my artistic journey. You can read the interview via the link below:
About Malcolm Koch‘s art
Malcolm’s abstract copper art works are in a style that he calls “Membrane Art”. A working practice that is characterised by mark makings on curved structures rather than on a flat picture plane. The surface geometry underpins the aesthetic of each piece. So the drilling, saw cuts, patina (staining) processes were all developed through the practice of allowing the curved surface geometry to play a part in creating distinctive expressions before the transformation of flattening the profile. An aesthetic thought that he has been evolving since 2004.
More information:
Malcolm’s work has had over 20 solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions, including at RiAus (FutureSpace Gallery) which had two exhibitions: Visual Entanglement in 2016 and Under the Surface in 2014. His work is in numerous private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas. He has been a three time finalist in the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize. WNSAP–previously accepted entries, and a finalist in the Stanthorpe Art Prize and the South Australian Living Arts festival.