An Interview With Julie Karpodini
Julie Karpodini’s work explores shape and colour whilst investigating pictorial space. Her memories of landscape and figuration slowly build an image that holds the space that she is trying to discover. The memories usually involve places she has travelled to that hold importance to her, as well as narratives from personal experiences. The process is always one of excavation, with the surface often being built up repeatedly and changing drastically before the composition is found. The ultimate goal is that the space created in two dimensional medium will resonate with a presence and some semblance of place, an image that holds a reality of it’s own, discovered through the process.
Can you tell us a little bit about you?
I am a painter, currently living with my husband and toddler in a medieval village in the mountains outside of Valencia, in Spain. I was born in Greece, but have lived and studied all over the world and for the first time in my life feel somewhat settled. I have painted since I was 14, and am still finding it a mysterious, confusing and inspiring process.
What is your artistic process and how has it evolved since you began painting?
I don't have a simple answer for this. My process has changed and is changing all the time, but also some things have been constant since almost day one. An artist friend of mine said to me recently that in my work I am 'always searching', and I guess that is the most constant thing about my process. I work in my studio, often using memories of people and places, or sometimes photography (almost always of people I know) and I make small colour sketches to try and light some kind of fire. Once I find something I like, it goes a little haywire from there. My process is a battle a lot of the time. Pushing and pulling the image until it lands somewhere. I often scrape back layers of paint, and lately I am collaging - cutting out areas I don't like or pasting on scraps of painted paper or canvas. Normally as soon as I feel I have arrived somewhere the ground falls from between my feet and I am totally lost again. I guess that is what makes it so interesting. I am not someone that relies on an ease of technique or formula. I am searching however, these days, for a way to work with a little less angst and maybe more compassion for what I produce. I have been doing a lot of printmaking this last year, and it's a great change as it subverts my need to constantly reinvent an image. It kind of is what it is as soon as it's made, and that has offered some balance for me.
How has your nomadic lifestyle and the places you have travelled to influenced your work?
Certain countries had a profound affect on my work. The first time I went to India I came home with two years worth of ideas (all focused on the buffalo that wander around the ghats in Varanasi). I went back three times to take photos and draw, and then would go back to my studio (in Seattle at the time) to make paintings. I have not been since 2010, and I would really love to return one of these days and see what I would make of that imagery now. The UK is where I first studied art with any seriousness, and I was so naive when I arrived. My work made a huge leap towards the end of my time there, but in the three years before that leap I think I was just utterly confused. Also, certainly living in New York has probably influenced my work a lot. The New York Studio School, where I received my MFA, had and still has some of the most incredible teachers, who love and understand painting so much that they really opened up a whole new world for me. The friendships I made through that school, and the artists who are my friends now also affect my work. I have a small community of painters who I can turn to, who speak my "language". It's great. So I guess there are a lot of ways for a place to influence one's work.
What steps do you take to go from a memory to a finished painting?
Drawings. Colour studies. I really just use the initial idea as a way to start. Ultimately the memory does not matter at all, the painting has a life of it's own and I respond to the painting, I no longer think about the memory.
What role does colour play in your work?
A huge role! Right now I'm in a big hole with a painting. It keeps getting worse and worse. The only way I have been able to move it forward at all is by glancing at it out of the corner of my eye and looking for colour "moments". These give me clues and at least allow me to take baby steps forward. My best aha moments are generally when I see abstract colour relationships that make me happy and then everything around it falls into place in terms of what I need to do. Likewise the fastest way for me to destroy a painting is when I am just throwing anything at it, kind of stabbing in the dark for colour resolutions. Or when I am lazy and don't take enough time to get the colour I know I want. I think especially recently as my compositions are more abstracted I really need the colour to speak.
Your earliest memory of art?
Nice question! I think my earliest memory of art was being obsessed by Mary Cassatt when I was around 11 or 12. We were homeschooled, so I was able to choose what I wanted to study, and I spent a long time reading about her, and looking at her paintings.
What is your favourite art movement or period, and how does it inspire your work?
Wow, so many. The middle ages and early Renaissance are periods I always find myself drawn to. There is an incredible sense of modernity there, and clarity. When I visited Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel in Padua it blew my mind. It was like he had traveled to the future, and back to the beginning and distilled everything that was important. He is like the start and ending point for painting for me. I always love the early Bay Area Figurative Painters and find a lot there to inspire me. When I first saw Diebenkorn's paintings they made such sense to me. It was like I had always been friends with those paintings. Right now I'm looking at Roy Lichtenstein's pre-Pop work, which is a real surprise. I keep looking at through a book I have and finding really unusual colour relationships that are helping me. Also out on my table in the studio at the moment is a book of Bob Thompson paintings and book of Corot's women. So I am really all over the place!
Are there any particular artists that you are currently enjoying?
Well right now - Bob Thompson, Ken Kiff, pre-Pop Roy Lichtenstein, Rose Wylie, and Bonnard (always).
Where is your favourite place to travel?
So many! But always without a doubt I am happiest travelling in Greece. I was born there and my heart is still there. I love Spain, where I live, but I need to set foot in Greece once a year to stay sane. New York is also exciting to visit now as a tourist rather than an exhausted inhabitant trying to make rent. And Italy, almost anywhere, for the art.
Any upcoming projects you are particularly excited about?
I’m currently preparing for a solo show next year which I am very excited about, and also very nervous!