A brush with sensuality: an art show

David Koch said his art would be different if he had more money, but he finds a way to bring art into almost everything he does.
Recycled tin foil balls are piled up about two inches high in two windows on each side of his studio door.

“I put them there until they start to fall down and then I recycle them,” he said. “But I kind of like the way it looks. Maybe I’ll put some glass up there so they can’t fall out.”

Koch is one of 15 artists that are exhibiting work in the Art of Sensuality show at the AC2 Gallery on Mountain Road.

“For me, sensuality isn’t necessarily sexuality; it’s anything that deals with the senses,” he said. “And these surfaces are very fetish-istic and are smooth and meant to pull you in.”

Koch’s two pieces in the show involve the mind, body and spirit. Both images have a big milk splash, a diagram and a woman’s face with her eyes closed.

“In this particular show there are two pieces from a series I started a few years ago called ‘Tongue Twisted Soul,’” he said. “It’s basically two three-subject paintings. I use diagrams a lot in my work because that is the mind piecing things together. And a visual metaphor for the physical is these big splashes of chocolate which I got directly off the slim fast labels, which is of the body too.”

Koch said his sense of sight was rocked when he moved to New Mexico 25 years ago.
“I caught the first ride out of town (Louisiana) and ended up here. Basically, I just wanted to do something different,” he said. “I love New Mexico. I totally dig it. The light is just so different out here. It’s like tripping or a cartoon sometimes. It’s the very high-contrast colors, the intense blue sky and the sun setting, it’s just crazy.”

As inspired as he is, he makes art in bits and pieces, not all at once.
“I have to break things down in do-able parts like, what can I get done tonight,” he said.

Koch said creating art in small bits helps him to organize his thoughts. He starts in Photoshop and then prints his images out, draws them onto a canvas and paints.
Koch’s 13-year-old cat, Echo, is his long-term furry friend who’s seen some crazy days. The cat has survived two dog fights, one where he jumped in between two dogs fighting, and the other was a one-on-one with a German shepherd.

Jennifer Urban, who works in the UNM children’s Psychology Clinic, has two triptychs in the Art of Sensuality show. Urban said the senses can be hard to capture in images and that she would be most lost if she had to give up her sense of sight.
“The sense I’m most willing to give up is probably my taste,” she said. “There are probably some things I don’t want to taste. I think that sight is ultimately important to communicating. I tend to not listen to people that much. I’m normally only hearing bits and pieces that I put together so I have to look around to see what’s going on.”

Urban said making art helps her communicate more with her patients at the clinic.
“It’s definitely therapeutic for me and for people in general,” she said. “The good thing about art is that you can say things and disguise it, so you don’t feel totally exposed. I work with children a lot and they don’t always want to talk about it, so you can veil it.”

*Opening reception for The Art of Sensuality
AC2 Gallery
301 Mountain Rd. NE
Saturday
6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Shows through March 28*