Born in 1981 in Lansing, Michigan, USA
Lives and works in San Francisco, USA
Koak’s work portrays the complex duality of identity and human nature through a mastery of the line which extends across drawing, painting and sculpture. Rendered with exquisite technique and effortless mark-making, her emotionally charged figures and landscapes are imbued with a compelling sense of agency and inner life.
education
2016
MFA in Comics, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA
2011
BFA in Individualized Studies, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA
solo shows
2025
The Window Set, Charleston in Lewes, UK
2024
Lake Margrethe, Perrotin, Paris, France
2023
The Canary, Bibeau Krueger, New York City, USA
Letter to Myself (when the world is on fire), Altman Siegel, San Francisco, USA
2022
The Driver, Perrotin, Hong Kong, PRC
2020
Return to Feeling, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, USA
2019
Holding Breath, Union Pacific, London, UK
2018
Breaking the Prairie, Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Seed for Planting, Walden, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2017
Bathers, Alter Space, San Francisco, USA
group shows
2024
Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
2023
Dust Piles Us Up, Suhe Haus, Shanghai, PRC
October +, Perrotin, Paris, France
Crafting Radicality: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift, de Young Museum, San Francisco, USA
Summer Escape: Part One, Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts, USA
I've Got a Feeling. The 5 Senses in Contemporary Art, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers, France
2022
I’m Stepping High, I’m Drifting, and There I Go Leaping, XIAO Museum, Rizhao, China
Heroic Bodies, Rudolph Tegners Museum and Statue Park, Dronningmølle, Denmark
AMT Salon, Haverkampf Galerie, Berlin, Germany
A Few Small Nips, Mrs. Gallery, Maspeth, New York, USA
Familiars, Et al., San Francisco, USA
2021
New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive | BAMPFA, California, USA
Traces, Haverkampf Galerie, Berlin, Germany
Women on Women—Don’t Call Me Muse!, Collaborations, Copenhagen, Denmark
Triple Burner, Union Pacific, London, UK
2020
100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Center, New York City, USA
2018
The Larkin Showroom, Vacation, New York City, USA
Liquid Dreams, Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Palo Santo, Ratio 3, San Francisco, USA
American Fine Arts—Part II: On the Tip of My Tongue, BBQLA at Cloaca Projects, San Francisco, USA
You Are Who I Think You Are, American Medium, New York City, USA
2017
Female Gaze, Museum of Sex, New York City, USA
Therianthropy, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, England, UK
Teeter Totter, BBQLA, Los Angeles, USA
3. The Set, Et al. at Holiday Forever, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA
On Elizabeth, Olsen Gruin, New York City, USA
Plucked, 100%, San Francisco, USA
2016
The Weeping Line, Alter Space at Four Six One Nine, Los Angeles, USA
Pleasures & Treasures, Ampersand Gallery & Fine Books, Portland, Oregon, USA
The Bad Case of the Uglies, Et al. etc., San Francisco, USA
2015
It Does and It Doesn't, Alter Space, San Francisco, USA
public collections
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, Angers, France
de Young, San Francisco, California, USA
awards
2022
Tamarind Institute Residency, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
2020
Eureka Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, USA
2018
Liquitex Residency, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, USA
