Jan Sebastian Koch: If Mountains Could Sing

Following his successful solo show during last year’s Summer Marathon (in which 7 artists presented week-long solo shows over the summer), German artist Jan Sebastian Koch returns to the gallery with his first full-length exhibition. Titled If Mountains Could Sing, the exhibition takes inspiration from his adopted home of Norway, Icelandic music, and the “silence and calmness in Northern Norway” where the artist states that there are few people and hardly any sound apart from the wind through the landscape. Looking at his serene, ethereal colour-field paintings, it is easy to imagine shifting polar landscapes, melting ice-caps, or the first sprig of flora awakening through the melted snow.

In this regard, there is a type of poeticism or spiritualism that surfaces throughout the works. Koch states that working in such solitude and with such focus has introduced him to a sense of “profound humility, a whole new connection to nature and, happiness” – a sort of internal purification that comes through the cleansing air and crystalline blue skies.

Upon asking Koch to elaborate on his recent work and techniques, he replied with a list of pigments – it reads like a small poem and is included here in its entirety.

Colours
Pigments
Rare pigments
Like epidot
Malachit
Han blue, which is very rare
and bright, bright French ochre