Suzy Kopf

SUZY KOPF

Brooklyn, NY. suzykopf@gmail.com. suzykopf.com

b. San Francisco, California

Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

EDUCATION                 

2011    BFA, Parsons The New School for Design, New York City, NY &

           BA, Eugene Lang College, New York City, NY, magna cum laude

ADDITIONAL STUDY

2010    Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA

2008    Parsons Paris, Paris, France

2006    School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA                

2005    Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

RESIDENCIES

2013    Elsewhere Artist Residency, Greensboro, NC (upcoming)

2011    Recent Graduate Residency, Brooklyn Art Space, Brooklyn, NY

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS                        

2013     The Home Project, GroundArts Project Space, New York, NY

2012     Winter Art Sale, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY  

            PS295’s Silent Art Auction, Brooklyn, NY

            RAW Brooklyn Semi-Final RAWards Exhibition, Brooklyn, NY  

            Gowanus Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY  

            Go! Brooklyn Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY

            Small Works, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

            Radiate Showcase, RAW Artists, Brooklyn, NY

            Member Salon, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

            Brooklyn Collective Showcase, Brooklyn, NY

            6x6x2012, Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY

            Bay Ridge 5^th Avenue Storefront Art Walk, Brooklyn, NY

            boxofjars.com, Online Art Magazine Featured Artist, Volume II

            Sweet!, Studio Place Arts Center, Barre, VT

            LOTTA ART Benefit, School 33 Art Center, Baltimore, MD

            Spring Member Salon, Brooklyn Artists Gym Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

            31^st Annual Competitive Exhibition, KCCA Gallery, Kinston, NC

            March Salon Show, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

            Member Salon, Brooklyn Artists Gym Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

            Crossroads: A Shifting Landscape, Walsh Gallery, New Orange, NJ                   

2011     Introductions, Brooklyn Artists Gym Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

            EJECTED, Parsons Arneson Hall Gallery, New York, NY         

2010     Odd Couplings, Parsons 5^th Floor Gallery, New York, NY

2009     Questions of Faith, Parsons 5^th Floor Gallery, New York, NY

2007     5 by 5, Pacific Art League Gallery, Palo Alto, CA

2006     San Mateo Landscape Exhibition, City Offices, San Mateo, CA

AWARDS + HONORS    

2012     RAW Brooklyn Visual Artist of the Year, RAW Artists, Brooklyn, NY

            Semi-Finalist in Visual Arts, RAW Artists, Brooklyn, NY

            Invited Member of Brooklyn Collective, Brooklyn, NY

2011     Recent Graduate Residency Scholarship, Brooklyn Art Space, Brooklyn, NY

            Guest Artist, Valencia High School, Los Lunas, NM                

2007     BA Dean’s Scholarship, BFA Dean’s Scholarship, New York, NY

            W.M. Chase Merit Scholarship, Dean’s List, New York, NY

            First Place in Ladies Auxiliary VFW Patriotic Art Contest, National

            Menlo Art League Scholarship, Menlo Park, CA

            Bank of America Certificate in Art, San Francisco, CA

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ABOUT THE WORK

Brooklyn, NY. suzykopf@gmail.com. suzykopf.com

Like many of my Millennial peers, I wish to reconcile my nostalgia for the industrial era with the unforeseen challenges of the digital age before us. My large-scale oil paintings tread towards the places of alignment between the natural optics of the human eye and the world as we experience it on our everyday screens. Similar to corrupted picture files, my contemporary landscapes evoke a surreal memento mori for the past life of the United States that feels inherently digitized.

If we were to return to a house we once lived in and find the trees cut down and the porch redone, we might see this cosmetic change as erasure of our history. Author André Aciman writes “even if I don’t disappear from a place, places disappear from me,” and comforts, “this is a natural cycle in the human life.[1]” Aciman’s point, that in time we lose the tangible feeling of the places we have inhabited, is a major theme in my work. Yet, I believe the past is traceable and is only becoming more so since the advent of the Internet.

My artistic process involves traveling, documenting landscapes through photography and then altering these real places with computer generated obstructions of space. Throughout my education, my aesthetic has continually been informed by the painters Richard Diebenkorn, Peter Doig, Wayne Thiebaud and Alex Katz, all of whom use space and color to reimagine the genre of painting. Historically the ability of photographs and film to capture singular moments has been accepted as testimony to physical presence. Yet, similar to contemporary artist Curtis Mann, who physically destroys pictures, my work is about tampering with record. Removing aspects of a particular moment lends singular locales a sense of anonymity and possibility.

Visually, I’m influenced by the flatness of paint-by-numbers and the reductive line work of coloring books. When I first began the series, I replaced information with white, more closely emulating these forms; recently I have introduced color and fragmented the picture plane into separate panels to move more aggressively towards abstraction. I am interested in experimenting further with technology in my work as well as trying out new textures and patterns in the spaces to expand the conceptual framework of this series.

Ultimately, I am curious what decay can mean in a country as young as America. Between the dying auto industry, global warming and the fiscal cliff, it has become commonplace for people to say we live in “end times.” My work attempts to examine the absences in our presence by utilizing the physicality of painting to address the digital era.