Painted in 2021, Katherina Olschbaur’s The Lovers offers an immersive landscape in which the limbs of the titular lovers curve and entwine. The bodies are picked out in swathes of magenta, deep red and royal blue, their shadowed faces turned towards each other in a passionate embrace. The Lovers is a stunning example of Olschbaur's interrogation of desire, power and emotion and their expression through body language. Her work defies easy categorization, as gender, sexuality and narrative twist on her immense canvas.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this painting will benefit Black Rock Senegal, Kehinde Wiley’s multi-disciplinary residency program in Dakar that seeks to support new international artistic creation through collaborative exchange and to incite change in the global discourse about what Africa means today.
Olschbaur was selected as an Artist-in-Residence in 2021 at Black Rock Senegal, where she was “inspired by the work of local dance companies whose practices intertwine contemporary movement with traditional rhythms and techniques.”i The motion of bodies—action and reaction, push and pull—can be seen in The Lovers, as Olschbaur positions the body as a site of resistance and repressed desire.