Kotscha Reist

Born in Bern in 1963, Kotscha Reist lives and works in his native city. From 1984 to 1989, he studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where he became familiar with contemporary Dutch and Belgian painting. A painter, draughtsman and printmaker, he has developed a body of work in which the image and its modes of representation are constantly questioned.

His paintings often take photographs and subjects drawn from the visible world as their point of departure: people from his circle or public figures, animals, trees, architecture and objects. Transposing these sources onto the canvas, Reist crops, enlarges or reduces them, and sometimes fragments their legibility. In his works of the 1990s, a restrained palette and glazes muted the motifs; his more recent paintings make use of bolder colours and more pronounced contours.

Windows, geometric fields of colour or other abstract elements nevertheless interrupt the gaze. This distancing leaves the images open to shifting narratives and memories, while also drawing attention to painting itself.

Oil painting on canvas occupies a central place in his practice, alongside drawing, printmaking and, at various points in his career, installation and projects in public space. His works are held, among others, in the collections of the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Kunstmuseum Thun, as well as those of the Fonds régional d’art contemporain de Picardie. In 2017, the Kunsthaus Grenchen dedicated his first institutional solo exhibition to him, «Les mémoires reconstruites», bringing together paintings, drawings and prints.

His recent presentations include a solo exhibition at AroundSpace Gallery in Shanghai in 2024, and «Colour On My Collar» at Galerie Kornfeld in Bern in 2025.