Magdalena Los, Artist

Magdalena Los (born 1987, Jastrzębie-Zdrój, PL) lives and works in Cologne. Her artistic practice is based on a conceptual, mostly pictorial or painterly approach. Los’ digitally collaged imaginary spaces combine effigy-like reference systems and are restless amalgams of a series of discursive, material, or temporal references – that is, in Los’ artistic practice the works constantly interpenetrate each other. Alternately surreal, comic-like, or naturalistic, the motifs are sketchily layered, and constantly revolve around the relationship between labor, time, and value, with humor and seriousness always in balance. The recurring questions What do I want? and What can I do? thereby illuminate the specific area between desire and powerlessness, and deal with visibility, selection processes, and the contextualization of art. Currently, Los is preparing a solo exhibition at artothek in Cologne, 2022, her most recent solo show took place at Bonner Kunstverein, 2021. Her work has been shown in various group exhibitions, including PiK Cologne, Klosterruine Berlin, Sammlung Falckenberg Hamburg, all 2020, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, and Bärenzwinger Berlin, 2019. Early 2022 she will be a resident guest at Urbane Künste Ruhr. She received the working scholarship of the Stiftung Kunstfonds and was awarded the Friedrich-Vordemberge-Stipendium of the city of Cologne, both 2021. In 2020, she was selected for the Peter Mertes Fellowship. In 2019, she was awarded the Hamburg Working Scholarship.