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Karin Bos
 

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Karin Bos

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Karin Bos
Karin Bos (1966, NL) graduated at the Amsterdam School of Fine Arts in 1989. She works as a visual artist in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her main media are painting, drawing and printing.

People are the focus point of her work. Main characters are usually girls or women. Especially mutual relative power and relations have her interest. Frictions and inequality in these relationships is a recurrent theme. For instance between man and woman, or adult and child, or children amongst each other, group behavior versus the loner. When the pursuit of harmony fails, it becomes interesting for her work.
Several examples of 'girlpower' series Karin Bos has accomplished are 'Showgirls', 'Gamegirls', 'Fairyqueens' and 'Feel Good'.

In her recent work there is a shift towards the landscape. Karin Bos asked herself if she could tell something about people without having them literally in sight. It resulted in fairytale-like landscapes with an ominous undertone, where always something odd is present. These 'Slightly Creepy Camping Sites' are paintings of barns, sheds and abandoned caravans in harsh landscapes which get their suspense no longer by the act or look of the main character, but by the use of color, light and the way it is painted. Important in her work is the suggestion. It evokes a cinematic world, a world of stories, where nothing is what it seems, and where a merry holiday scene could as well be the site of a terrible crime. This tension, this ambiguity is what interests Karin Bos as an artist.

In 2009 Karin Bos published the catalogue 'A Trip to the Countryside'.
Outdoor life and nature play a large part in her recent work. Because in the Netherlands infrastructure and urbanization are so widely present, it is difficult for her to find landscapes she can use as a source for her work. All Dutch 'nature' is planned, organized and designed. To develop her new body of work she needed more varied source material. Therefore she has done several artist-in-residencies abroad. She focuses on landscapes that provoke mixed feelings. What attracts her is space, 'ugliness' and roughness of the scenery, the intensity of colors and light, and the ruthlessness of nature. It is not there to please. It has a dark side, which fits her work very well.

Recently a retrospective was on view at the Contemporary Art Museum CODA in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, from November 5 2017 until March 4 2018. This solo exhibition contained work of the past 10 years with an emphasis on the landscape, and man in relationship to nature. The CODA Museum had the scoop to present her most recent series 'Fuente' and 'Back to Basecamp', which are the result of her travels to Spain and Iceland. The Mondriaan Fund has awarded Karin Bos a 'Work Contribution Proven Talent' to develop this new work.
In addition, CODA Museum appointed Karin Bos as guest curator, and asked her to compose an accompanying group show at the museum. The show titled 'Expedition Nature' (those who wander are not lost) contained works of approximately 20 artists who work in the fields of painting, sculpting, video and photography.
In 2020 Museo CAB in Burgos (Spain) presents a solo show with works inspired by the travels through Spain by Karin Bos. This exhibition is on view from Feb 7 until Sep 20 2020. https://vimeo.com/392942489
for museum video with interview. https://karinbos.blogspot.com/2020/02/karin-bos-at-museum-cab-burgos.html
for impression of the show.
For inquiries and studio visits contact karinbos@xs4all.nl https://www.cabdeburgos.com/exposicion/606200104