Rosa Loy

Rosa Loy was born in Zwickau, Germany (1958) and lives and works in Leipzig, Germany. She completed her BFA and MFA at the Academy of Visual Art in Leipzig. Loy is associated with the New Leipzig School of contemporary German painting, a loose collective of figurative artists that also included her husband, Neo Rauch.

Rosa Loy’s work comes out of a worldview influenced by her upbringing in Leipzig, in the former East Germany, cut off from the rest of postwar Germany by Communism and the Berlin Wall. Using casein, an ancient water-based paint derived from milk protein, Loy fills large canvases with mysterious and compelling all-female dream worlds. Brittle and thick, the casein imparts intensity to her paintings, which are both dark and lovely, abounding with references to fairytales, German and art history, Freudian eroticism, authoritarian rule, and death. 

Loy has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at Lyles & King, New York, Gallery Baton, Seoul, Flaneurin, Frauen Museum, Wiesbaden, Space K, Seoul, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig, the Städtische Museum Zwickau, Germany; Kunstverein Elsterpark E.V., Leipzig, Germany; Kunstverein der Stadt, Backnang, Germany; Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles; André Schlechriem, New York; and David Zwirner, New York. She is represented in major museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Deutsche Bank Collection.

Rosa Loy is represented by the following galleries: Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig; Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles ; McClain Gallery, Houston; and Gallery Baton, Seoul