Michael Koch is 37 years old and is raising the curtains for his next exhibition in Autumn.MOSSLESS: The images on your website are decidedly small - especially compared to their real size, printed. What made you decide to present them online this way?MICHAEL KOCH: Surfing the world wide web is a spiralling thing to do - I just want the website to be kind of a preview to my work. I think the best way to experience art is to go to exhibitions and look at the originals. There are so many details in my work which can not be shown on the screen - like the surface and reflection of the diasecs and the shown materiality, skin, hair or clothes - or  even the installation and combination of pictures, furnishing and other things in the room - you have to “get into the mood”.  In my work I like to irritate. I am not looking for harmony. This is not possible to be shown on a screen without transforming it into a different artform. Maybe I will find an alternative someday…ML: In many of your series you set portraits and photographs of nature side by side. Why is this?MK: I love being in nature where I find a lot of harmony and inspiration. Maybe that is typical german and hopelessly romantic - but experiencing nature in my photographs is also a different theme - the landscape transforms to a stage or a backdrop and becomes something artificial. The combination with the portraits or still lifes is like an associative entanglement just to create certain emotions. ML: You series I Never Promised You A Rose Garden is especially beautiful. How did you evoke such colours?MK: I work with an analogue medium-format camera and printing and filtering colour in the laboratory is a a huge part of my working process. At university I learned to filter neutrally but I am more interested in colour faults to support the artificial. When I take pictures I use flash lights or artificial light in combination with natural light in order to get theatrical effects. And of course I choose the colours during the process of staging the details like setting, clothes or make-up.  ML: What’s playing on your iTunes right now?MK: Kate Bush - Never Forever.

Michael Koch is 37 years old and is raising the curtains for his next exhibition in Autumn.

MOSSLESS: The images on your website are decidedly small - especially compared to their real size, printed. What made you decide to present them online this way?
MICHAEL KOCH: Surfing the world wide web is a spiralling thing to do - I just want the website to be kind of a preview to my work. I think the best way to experience art is to go to exhibitions and look at the originals. There are so many details in my work which can not be shown on the screen - like the surface and reflection of the diasecs and the shown materiality, skin, hair or clothes - or  even the installation and combination of pictures, furnishing and other things in the room - you have to “get into the mood”.  In my work I like to irritate. I am not looking for harmony. This is not possible to be shown on a screen without transforming it into a different artform. Maybe I will find an alternative someday…

ML: In many of your series you set portraits and photographs of nature side by side. Why is this?
MK: I love being in nature where I find a lot of harmony and inspiration. Maybe that is typical german and hopelessly romantic - but experiencing nature in my photographs is also a different theme - the landscape transforms to a stage or a backdrop and becomes something artificial. The combination with the portraits or still lifes is like an associative entanglement just to create certain emotions. 

ML: You series I Never Promised You A Rose Garden is especially beautiful. How did you evoke such colours?
MK: I work with an analogue medium-format camera and printing and filtering colour in the laboratory is a a huge part of my working process. At university I learned to filter neutrally but I am more interested in colour faults to support the artificial. When I take pictures I use flash lights or artificial light in combination with natural light in order to get theatrical effects. And of course I choose the colours during the process of staging the details like setting, clothes or make-up.  

ML: What’s playing on your iTunes right now?
MK: Kate Bush - Never Forever.





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