There was a lady named Ruth Ettling in my church who was a fairly well-known artist. She made beautiful prints and collages. I got to visit her studio when I was in high school, and I remember wanting to have a studio like hers. She went to Rhode Island School of Design and was thrilled for me when I was accepted to go to college there.

I studied painting because I wanted to master color, but I’ve evolved into a sculptor. Now I make this hybrid between painting and sculpture where I build surfaces of color with weaving, sewing, and beading instead of paint.

LO: Please explain the themes in your work as well as your working process. For instance, some artists are very methodical while others are more instinctive. Please elaborate.
KD: The idea of a garden in paradise influences the organic abstractions I make. I worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for many years in Asian and Islamic art, and that time deeply influenced my work. The symmetry in jewelry from India, the balance between realism and abstraction in Japanese screens, and the beauty and fantasy of the borders in Persian paintings really connected with me.

I work instinctively but in a very orderly and organized manner. I organize my materials so that I have a sense of color, scale, and a goal of what I want to accomplish, and then I dive in.

LO: You are a painter, sculptor and also create public works. Are there any differences with each way of working?
KD: I approach each medium differently.

With painting, I have an idea about a size, palette, and compositional approach, but it’s pretty loose. I usually can’t articulate what I am doing in a piece until after I’ve done it.

With sculptures and installations, I usually gather together materials that I want to work with and start organizing the colors and forms until I develop a compositional plan.

I can usually say what direction I’m going in if not the final destination.

With public work, the site rules all of those elements. I look at the site and try to imagine how I can bring my visual voice to the space, history, and requirements of the place.

Public art requires that you fully articulate what you’re going to do before you find out if you are going to get the opportunity.

LO: Who are your favorite artists and why?
KD: I love Calder’s use of color and play, Lee Bontecou’s articulation of nature and abstraction, the way Kiki Smith and Louise Bourgeois use materials. Judy Pfaff’s compositions are so dynamic. Having worked at the Met, I developed a long, close relationship with the collection there. The Tiepelos at the top of the main staircase blow me away every time I see them; I’m awed by the color and compositional dynamism of those paintings.

LO: What advice would you give younger artists on how to mark success as an artist? Success seems to be marked by big galleries making big money. Do you think that there are other ways to mark success as an artist?
KD: Not everyone is going to get rich or even get by, and very few artists will always be “hot stuff.”  My advice: commit to a life of making art, with success being measured by your satisfaction with a piece or body of work. Make making art and building a body of work the priority; then, you need to find a balance in which you are creating the work, showing it, and engaging with the art world outside of your studio.

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Having founded the experimental noise-rock band, Black Dice, while studying at RISD almost two decades ago, Copeland’s artistic and musical careers have developed simultaneously. A crossing of audio and visual ways of thinking have become almost second nature to him; when conceiving of Pop, it is with Paolozzi-style collages, DIY record covers, 50’s rock-and-roll, and pop-electronic beats in mind. While occasionally pushing toward sensory overload in each genre, Copeland’s artwork also has an understated poignancy. The used-up musical equipment, discarded beach wear, re-stretched billboards that make up the exhibition may have lost their material edge, but are re-elevated through the artist’s use.

Copeland manages to repurpose objects that could be deemed unusable, scrap material, or even trash, to create media so compelling that it would make any bystander regret thinking these objects were anything less than art. The artist brings damaged goods back to life in a way that demonstrates both his artistic and musical abilities. The juxtaposition of Copeland’s audio and visual thought processes is apparent throughout the exhibition, and the show packs a punch with thoughtful selections of vibrant hues set amongst carefully chosen bits of pop culture.

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When I moved to New York ten years ago, I majored in graphic design and began a career in creative marketing and art direction. After college graduation in 2007, on the cusp of the economic recession, I worked for a magazine making designs for marketing programs. I moved on to a swiftly growing youth media colossus that was artistically minded. Amongst all of this, I still felt a pull to get back to my roots, to build upon my passion for art and design.

During these ten years in New York City I have met many extremely talented people, and continued to make my own art. After years of planning and building upon my experiences in marketing and advertising, in 2012 I launched Ballast Projects. I began working with my network of friends and looked to the emerging artists I respected, those who I believe to be the next, new generation of remarkable artists. One of my passions is painting, and so that was the area of art on which I focused. I feel it is one of the most humanistic of art forms and one that people seem to relate most to on a personal level.

Ballast Projects is not a space, not just a gallery, but a curatorial initiative amongst a growing group of young, contemporary artists and supporters who believe in the necessity of showcasing the new generation of artists who are breaking boundaries, both large and small. Ballast Projects is what keeps me working every free hour, constantly making sure it continues to grow, show after show. The programming has been able to expand incredibly fast as these talented artists and peers come out and voice their excitement for the new platform that Ballast Projects provides. My goal is to build a bridge with emerging artists who take themselves and their work seriously, with new and established collectors and institutions that are open to seeing a new generation mold the art world into what it will become in the twenty-first century.

My most recent show was with the SPRING/BREAK Art Show this March at a former Catholic school on Mott Street in Soho. It was a pleasure to curate a show in a venue with so much character, especially given the location. Knowing that it was an empty building in one of the high rent areas of the city that was to allow curators to show fine art really made me smile. I appreciated what a rarity it was. A large majority of the work that was shown throughout the fair was video art, installation based sculptures, and interactive pieces. I felt that the theme of New Mysticism was perfect to showcase the ritualistic nature of paintings and sculptures. Having a history of showing young contemporary abstract work, I felt I would go this route again to illustrate to the the public that Ballast Projects’s goal is to exhibit strong paintings from this new generation of successful abstract painters. Myself and two of the artists spent a rigorous day (and night) using fifteen gallons of white paint to bring the gallery atmosphere to the school.

A few months before the show, I was on a studio visit in Bushwick, and saw these intimately wrought hand sculptures that had recognizable objects cast within them. They were colorful and raw, and I knew this would be the finishing touch to the show. I wanted to juxtapose the paintings with a figurative, humanistic element that would bring the viewers back to how the works were created. Rachel Rossin created the hand sculptures that encircled the paintings of Russell Tyler, Matthew Hassell, Chuck Webster, Matt Mignanelli and Ted Gahl.

The SPRING/BREAK SHOW has been a springboard into early summer programming for another show with the SPRING/BREAK founders and the New Museum as well as a show at Kinfolk Studios’ gallery this June. In addition I am planning an outdoor show that I will be announcing in May for the end of summer!

Ballast Projects has been established to create open programming and to showcase and embrace the emerging, intelligent, cutting-edge artists of our generation.

By. Adam Mignanelli

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