Rosabel Rosalind Kurth-Sofer is a visual artist who approaches the body, particularly through self-portraiture, as both an act of self-care and a mode of activism. Her images often involve grotesque and exaggerated caricatures as a way of questioning concepts of identity. With lighthearted portraiture and snapshots of intimacy she gives face and voice to the underestimated, the misunderstood, and the insecure. She engages with ambiguity in gender, in form, in space, and in material, as a way of disorienting the viewer’s relationship with their own bodies, themselves.

 

Kurth-Sofer needs to create images in order to keep up with her ever-shifting relationship with her own ever-shifting body. Art-making for her is a process of upkeep, as imperative to her daily life as watering her plants and shaving her eyebrows. Though her drawings are frequently fantastical they bear very relatable and topical concerns of life in the 21st century, particularly under our current administration.

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She is currently working from her home studio in Los Angeles, California, but will soon be traveling to Vienna, Austria on a Fulbright Grant to research images of Anti-Semitism. During this time she will produce a series of self-portraits inspired by her findings in relation to her own Jewish identity. In June of 2019 she will have a solo show at Improper Walls Gallery, a contemporary art gallery located in Vienna. Here, her work will shift to examine both her relationship with her Jewish body as well as her female one.

 

Rosabel graduated with a BFA in printmaking and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in December 2017. After years away, she has returned to the valley of Los Angeles for a few months to dedicate her life to drawing all day long.

 

You can see more of her work on her instagram @rosabelrosalind or her website http://rosabelrosalind.com