Bach's self-portraits represent the artist in domestic settings. Bright colours and energetic strokes are the trademark of her distinct visual voice, which propelled her to be a key member of the German Neo-Expressionist movement Jungen Wilden, (‘the Young Wild Ones’). Soon after her participation at Documenta 7, 1982, Bach broke away from the group. To her, continuing to paint in an angular, alluring and energetic style was of highest importance, portraying her exotic and erotic demeanour.
Womanhood is a recurring theme in Bach’s painterly vocabulary and can be observed in Zauber and many of her other paintings and lithographs. The figures she depicts are always wearing heels but in a way that they are merged to their body like a new limb, in what seems a vigorous statement of sexualised femininity, which is not lost even with motherhood and the increasing housewife duties it brings.There is something incredibly captivating in her pictorial compositions, which, combined with some of her audacious poses, lead us to believe she holds extraordinarily strong views on her sexuality, lived with great freedom and, seemingly, fulfilment.
Elvira Bach was born in 1951 in Neuenhain, Taunus, Germany. She studied at the Staatliche Glassfachschule, Hadamar and the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. From 1972 ‐ 1981 she worked at the Schaubühne Halleschen Ufer, Berlin, financing her academic studies. In 1982, she was invited to be Artist in Residence at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Bach became a leading female artist of the Junge Wilden, the German new expressionist art movement and was the first woman artist to participate at Documenta 7, in Kassel, Germany. She also spent long periods living and working in Senegal. Her works are shown extensively in galleries and museums around the world and are held in collections such as the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She lives and works in Berlin.
Elvira Bach, Zauber, 2014, lithograph, H670 mm x W810 mm
Courtesy and ©Elvira Bach, Vera Schuhmacher and Renée Pfister 2020.
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