Today we sit down with Manhattan-based artist Sandra Koponen to learn more about what inspires her, her process, and her favorite pieces.
What’s your background?
I have always liked to draw and always been engaged with one artistic discipline or another. In 1983 I moved to NYC and worked on music, photography and film. Although I always dreamed of oil painting, in NYC it did not seem practical because I never had the space. Finally , in 2012 my cousins gave me their mother’s old oil paint and I took classes at the Art Students League for a couple years. I feel like I’ve finally found my true calling. I now have a painting studio and I paint almost every day.
What inspired you to start creating art?
From an early age I have always derived great pleasure from making pictures, playing music, and writing. Ideas always come to me in one form or another, and nothing is more satisfying really than seeing an idea take shape.
What inspires you?
Beautiful light, color, the things that catch my eye and that I remember are the greatest sources of visual inspiration. I also have conceptual ideas and am driven at times to make work addressing a social or political issue. Last winter I made the “officials of torture” portrait series, of all those in the Bush administration who implemented the CIA’s torture program. I produced a booklet and a web site for the series; officialsoftorture.com
Could you briefly describe your creative process?
At present there are two ways I start a painting: the first way is I paint from life or a photograph I’ve taken. The second way is after I’ve finished working on the painting of the day, I’ll use the leftover paint on my palette on a fresh canvas. These “left-over” paint paintings are usually abstract and not related to anything in particular, and I keep adding to them at the end of each day until I like them. Even when I’m not sure where I’m going with a painting, or am frustrated, I feel it’s important to paint every day. If I really don’t like a painting, I will destroy it or take a bold action to radically change it. Sometimes the best painting comes out of a “destroyed” painting. Often it seems that the paintings I spend the most time on are the worst. It’s probably best to do a few paintings of a subject. On New Year’s day I finished a painting that I’d spent days on, and it looked very stiff to me; but then I had an idea of how I wanted it to look. So I did another painting of the same subject very quickly and as soon as I posted it on my web site someone wanted to buy it. In general I paint quickly and I’ve probably done close to 90 paintings this year alone.
What is your most important artist tool?
My vision and being able to recognize what excites me. Again, sometimes I don’t find the exciting thing until I start painting, but usually somewhere along the way, focus is found.
Why do you like/prefer the medium that you use?
I love oil paints because they are so malleable. You can keep changing your painting, and oils have a wonderful texture and the colors are vibrant. I probably wouldn’t paint if acrylics were all I had to use. I like watercolor, but I have so much more control with oils, and feel like I’ve made something solid when I’ve completed a painting. Works on canvas or panels are more of an object d’arte than a photograph or a work on paper.
Is there an artwork your are most proud of? Why?
Soon after I got my studio, I did a very fast painting of two fish, Two Whiting on Ice. It is a pretty large painting and I painted it in less than an hour. When I finally stopped and took a photo of it, I couldn’t believe that I’d done it. It isn’t necessarily my best painting, but it is the one that amazed me most.
Who are your artistic influences, or who are your favorite artists?
Edward Hopper, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Manet, Alice Neel, Dieberkorn. There are so many great painters, and you can learn something from all of them.
