Trained in the visual literary medium of Comics, Koak has made line-work the cornerstone of her multidisciplinary practice, which runs through drawing, painting, and sculpture. Her expressive use of the line, which she likens to “a sense of language, one that’s tone or intonation can shift dramatically with the slightest shift in curve or weight”, demonstrates a mastery which bears through all her pieces from spectacular large formats, to the intimacy of work on paper, to human-scale sculpture.
Modesty, a sculptural “dressing screen” referencing the intimacy of domestic space, serves as both a barrier and a window, its function subverted from an object of secrecy to a celebration of the body that it's meant to conceal. Handpainted in Veronese green, the screen is panelled by green pastel drawings on acrylic dyed rag paper.
The interplay between abstraction and realism is a constant in Koak’s exploration of the figure. Figures are pulled between rendered and abstracted bodies, oscillating between elusive states of being present within their surroundings or isolated from them. These mutable modes of depiction characterize the artist's principal themes in her practice: the body's connection to nature, the boundaries between our bodies and the external, the capricious temperament of nature, the mercurial quality of spaces which exist between interior and exterior.
The shell (or spiral), which appears as a recurring motif throughout Koak's practice, emphasizes her interest in the idea of the body as a domicile. Representing both a protective barrier and a space of introspection and internal reflection, it alludes to a quality of being present in our bodies (or being disassociated from them). The motif of the shell is highlighted alongside various conceptual and technical methods distinctive to Koak's practice which she uses to portray the intimacy of personal memories and emotions.