Engels the Artist

Artist Q&A with Engels the Artist

Engels the Artist is a painter who subverts the materials of a painting. Staples march across the picture plane. Wooden stretchers peek through raw canvas. Canvas is punctured, torn or shredded. The strict economy of line and texture, the use of everyday objects, and makeshift elegance recalls his grandmother’s home in Haiti, which against all odds had splendor.

In 2019, Engels the Artist had a solo show at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase New York. He has shown extensively in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. The National Museum of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Skoto Gallery, New York; FiveMyles Gallery, New York; Zane Bennett Gallery, Santa Fe; and others have exhibited his work.

A monograph on Engels the Artist was published by Neuberger Museum of Art in 2019, and his work has been written about in Hyperallergic, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News.

Engels the Artist works in Brooklyn, New York.

“Cotton Pearl”, oil on canvas, 60 x 40 x 8 in | 152 x 102 x 20 cm, 2017

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

I like so many artists from so many different periods. The impressionists and the artists of the Dada movement speak to me directly. The tenderness of Cezanne. Bob Thompson’s play on the classical and the raw. One of my favorite artists is Antoni Tàpies. His work is tactile. His used materials like string and marble dust. He grew up during the Spanish Civil War. He looked at destruction and made something sacred, tranquil. His work makes me feel like I am on a journey. It is transformative.

How did you become a professional artist?

I did not get into art. Art got into me. I knew I was an artist when … Click here to read more

Terry Rodgers

Artist Q&A with Terry Rodgers

Terry Rodgers is an internationally recognized artist who has worked and lived in Washington, DC, Massachusetts, and Ohio. Rodgers’ current work focuses on portraying contemporary body politics. His rendering of an imaginary leisure life stands as an iconic vision of the tensions and confusions endemic to today’s society. These images are not snapshots or slices of life, but rather a compression and dissection of our rampant imaginations and mediated influences. The seductive and marvelous glamour of the outer world jars against the vulnerability and delicacy of our inner and private selves.

“The Garden of Good and Evil”, oil on linen, 48 x 78 in | 122 x 198 cm, 2020

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

I have many artists that I admire for many different reasons. So, for me, it is impossible to choose one. Let me list a few in no particular order: Piero della Francesca, Max Beckmann, Joel Peter Witkin, John Singer Sargent, Toulouse-Lautrec, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Anders Zorn, Diego Velazquez, Agnolo Bronzino, Edgar Degas, Cy Twombly, Auguste Rodin Edouard Manet, Peter Paul Rubens, and Alice Neel.

How did you become a professional artist?

Interest and obsession have a lot to do with it, and looking and noticing carried me away.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

Perhaps more important is, what do I think about when I’m developing the Magwerks and the archival prints?

What are the effects of our super-photographic world, the miraculous, if not realistic, screen and magazine colors, the high impact graphic design of everything, the perfect plating requirements of the would-be food aficionados? What is it about the “best of, highest-rated, 5-star” that so commands our attention? Someone’s attention.

And then what is it about the sloosh of a sloppy smear of … Click here to read more

Tali Rose Krupkin

Artist Q&A with Tali Rose Krupkin

Tali Rose Krupkin is an Israeli-American artist based in Jersey City, NJ. Krupkin attended the Year Course program in Israel, and received her BFA in Painting and Art History at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers. She draws inspiration for her work from her own experiences as they relate to topics of feminism, spirituality, and nature. In her recent collection of work, the artist pays homage to women reclaiming their voices to oppose forced societal pressures of objectification and expected domesticity.

“Deep in the Sushi”, collage, 14 x 11 in | 36 x 28 cm, 2020

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

Matt Bollinger is an artist that continues to be a great influence for me. Having initially viewed his work through a screen, I was drawn to his handling of paint and use of color. In 2015, I had the opportunity to experience his work in person at Zürcher Gallery and was blown away by his inclusion of collage in his paintings. When he spoke at New York Studio School in 2018, I was further intrigued by his depictions of personal narratives and his ability to de-idolize “finished” parts of his paintings, which he continuously paints over to create his animations.

How did you become a professional artist?

If you’re an artist, you’re an artist. You simply are. Growing up, I was at peace when I was creating, and that’s still true for me now. My creativity and self-expression are an integral part of who I am. From a career perspective, it’s much like any other path; you make a plan, and you work on that plan every single day.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

Inspirations for my work come from my female experience, an exploration … Click here to read more