Lia Laimbock

Painter

Lia Laimböck (1965) is a versatile artist with an international oeuvre. Her work is figurative with great attention to detail of an almost illusory quality. She paints landscapes as allegories of origin: birth, life and death. Intimacy is central to this. She often begins on a large, white canvas, lets vague forms slowly come into focus, and works on the details. Like a watchmaker on a grand scale.

She gained recognition with 11 portraits of Dutch authors of her own choosing and built lifelong friendships with them. The entire series was acquired by the Literature Museum in The Hague. In the 2000s she developed her own series such as “The Origin” life-sized canvases depicting the origin of life. Or an indictment against the chemical industry “Organic versus Chemical” where she places the wondrous combination of animals in a chemical industrial complex. She exhibited in museums such as De Buitenplaats (Eelde) and Markiezenhof (Bergen op Zoom). In 2004 she won the Figurative Art Biennale in Arnhem, followed by a solo exhibition at the Kim Whanki Museum in Seoul.

Her travels around the world inspired powerful series such as “Starry Riders” where children float through the universe on moonfish. In 2008 she continued her international presence with exhibitions in New York. After moving to Ireland, the country she fell in love with, her work developed further. She painted portraits of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima for their inauguration (2014), and her work appeared on various Irish stages. She created a series of pastels and impressive portraits of iconic Irish characters such as Saint Bridget which garnered great appreciation.

Her artistic strength lies in the refined tension between figuration and suggestion, grand canvases, personal stories and universal feelings. Lia Laimböck invites you to become still, to look and to let yourself be taken to worlds full of deeper layers and hidden meanings.