Katherina Olschbaur wants to flip the script on women in art. Her paintings are energetic and erotic, and also funny too. One portrait shows a sexy minotaur posing naked with stockinged legs in the air. "You need humour to be serious", she explains. Olschbaur is also obsessed with research, particularly feminist theory. But her style is mainly inspired by dead white men from European art history – she loves the work of romantic painter Francisco Goya and impressionist painter Édouard Manet. This might seem inconsistent, but it's intentional. While working with Olschbaur in 2020, the curator Al...
Bio
Katherina Olschbaur (she/her) was born in 1983 in Bregenz, Austria. Since 2017, she has lived and worked in Los Angeles, USA.
Early life
Growing up in a religious family in a mountainous state in Austria, Olschbaur was taught to appreciate music, but had little contact with art. After her parents divorced when she was 4, she discovered drawing for herself as a cathartic practice. She left at 17 to Vienna where she began painting, as a means of searching for freedom and rebellion.
In their words
“A narrative grants an access point to the work. I’ve learned to memorise certain situations and certain lighting that resonates with me, and I work from there.”