The Artist and Her Faces. photo by Bob Schaffer
The Artist and Another of Her Subjects. Photo by Bob Schaffer
I sat down for a chat with artist Kristen Copham, who also owns a studio/gallery in the East Village, NY Studio Gallery (http://www.nystudiogallery.com).
Kristen is from Minnesota, and has made NY her home since 2004. Like many others, art brought her here, and a best friend, who moved to NY first. When Kristen would visit here, more and more aspects of the city intrigued her, until she thought, “Why not just move?”
Kristen lives on Suffolk Street, which is not the same street I can recall from the 1970’s, when the neighbors would toss smoke bombs into galleries, surely the ultimate art criticism (This is not a joke, I was in ABC No Rio on Rivington Street back then when an evening of performance was disrupted in just such a manner. Ahh, memories… The streets are safer, though I can’t say they are as much fun as they were, muggings aside).
Kristen is working on a project of 1000 Faces, which are just that: paintings, all the same small size, of faces. Kristen has always done figurative work, which is what attracted her work to me when I saw it in a gallery. I’m sick of abstract art. Anyone who makes use of the human figure has an immediate appeal to me.
Kristen tells that though she “loves abstract work, I’m terrible at it, but I’ve always been good with people, or animals.” The faces project came about because of her desire to work in a smaller format, so she bought some pieces of wood, and began with her roommate, which she says “was not very good. It took me awhile to get it right. First, she made 6 face paintings, then I said, I’ll do 100. Walking the streets, I was struck by the diversity of the faces, especially coming from an essentially Caucasian place like Minnesota. I finished the 100, and people kept asking ‘How many more? How many more?’ and soon I had about 600, so I just said ‘A 1000.’”
Along with faces, Kristen has a series of male nudes, influenced by artists like Sylvia Sleigh and Alice Neel. Kristen started with nude self portraits, then grew tired of that, and with the idea of female nudes in general, and liked the idea of switching the gender roles: women painting men naked, instead of the usual paradigm. Kristen likes to paint men who have never modeled, and most are artists.
“The paintings are also about the men I paint, so I’ll sit and talk with them about their work, and how they want to be represented. We both brainstorm. I don’t want the men to be just an object in a painting. I guess I’m approaching these in a more typical female manner, rather than saying ‘I’m the artist, sit like this, turn right.’ I try to collaborate more with my subjects, so the portraits are more natural and not so contrived.”
When Kristen first came to NY, she lived on 20th Street, in an apartment she renovated. “I’ve always been wheeling and dealing a bit in real estate, since about 1994. I used to buy places, fix them up, and sell them. When I sold my place on 20th, I decided to buy a building, because all the rules in co-ops annoyed me, like being chastised because I sublet my apartment, and I’d say ‘Why wouldn’t I sublet it? It was empty.’ I had had enough, so I looked for a small building I could fix up. This place was more about the real estate then the gallery.”
In fact, Kristen never planned to open a gallery. “When I first moved, my friends would say, ‘You going to open a gallery?’ and I’d say ‘Fuck no! I don’t want to run a gallery!’ But what happened, is that I had a studio in Dumbo, and when I started my face series, I’d ask people to come over so I could paint them, and they’d say ‘You’re in Brooklyn? I don’t want to go all the way to Brooklyn.’ Even though I was only one stop over the bridge, so I got a studio In the Whitehall building, on 25th Street, and I’d leave the door open for airflow, and people would constantly drop by. So I got the idea to use part of it as a gallery, by showing work by my friends up front, so there’d be a buffer zone. Then it just got a away from me, people would ask, ‘How can I show my work?’ Then I had to get help to handle the gallery stuff, and look at me now, I went from ‘No way am I having a gallery’ to living in one.”
Kristen is making the building more multi-purpose, with artists-in-residence, and a rehearsal space in the basement for bands, including her own, “Elfi Snow,” and she has become interested in video as well because of her interest in music. She is the singer/songwriter/guitarist for the band, and in fact did a show recently in Minnesota for the National Hot Rod Association.
You can call the studio if you’d like to be painted by Kristen: 212.627.3276, or info@nystudiogallery.com
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