Lou Hoyer (* 1985 in Berlin) lives and works in Potsdam, Germany. She studied fine arts at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) from 2005 to 2011 and completed her Master’s Studies under Prof. Valérie Favre. In 2012 she received the SRE Frida Kahlo Fellowship at the Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City. From 2014 to 2019 Lou Hoyer was the editor of the magazine NICHTSALSSCHOENHEIT – TEXTE, BILDER, PARTITUREN published annually in conjunction with theatre performances and exhibitions. She has shown her work in Berlin, New York, Mexico City, London, and Capetown, among others. Her work has appeared in various magazines, such as Kunstforum International, BOMB, Vice Magazine and Art.

The polyphony of drawing, text and musical performance characterizes Lou Hoyer’s work. Her pastel drawings are condensed daydreams. They walk the line between inside and outside, utopia and dystopia. Every line is a thought. She invents surreal images of female bodies that rub up against social expectations: the woman who paints her body with fish skin becomes a merwoman; In the next picture, the fish tail symbolizes the restrictions that a woman experiences in our society. Lou Hoyer’s large-format charcoal drawings show anamorphic figures. They multiply, break apart and merge again. The aesthetic deformation determines the perception of the body from within. Lou Hoyer reveals the physical act of drawing: the lines follow the waves of distortion and the motif, despite its monumentality, begins to move and takes on something fleeting.