A Portrait of the Artist: Natasha Karpinskaia

Abstract painter and mixed-media artist Natasha Karpinskaia has spent many years studying, curating and teaching art.

Her academic and curatorial experience in her native Moscow eventually led her to enroll in the Art History PhD program at Columbia University where she focused her research on 19th century American painting. As a curator in the International Department of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Karpinskaia prepared the translation of the exhibition catalog for a show titled "New Horizons: American Painting 1840-1910." The show was organized in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and became the launching pad for the artist and curator's academic career.

From 2000-2002, Karpinskaia taught 19th and 20th century art history courses at the New York Academy of Art in New York City. At the same time she began to discover the rewards of making art.

"I found something that was more exciting than being a professor," she said. "Experience has taught me something - that I am a happier person since becoming an artist full time."

Although she devotes her energies to coming up with new and elegant ways to mix materials and interact with audiences to her shows, Karpinskaia still teaches. She teaches abstract painting and mixed media courses at the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo, as well as painting and printmaking workshops at the Silvermine Guild Art Center in New Canaan, Conn.

"I consider myself a painter, printmaker and collage artist, but I see the different media as equally important. Each serves a certain purpose, and they complement each other," said the artist who is currently working on a process to combine encaustic or wax painting with collage.

Her 2010 solo show at Susan Calloway Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. called "Mix" brought together monotypes from her Doodle, Connecticut Fences, Jaipur and Monuments series, as well as paintings from the Alphabet series and several collages.

Often involving the use of brushes and limiting the artist to one original edition, monotyping is the printmaking technique that most resembles painting. Karpinskaia's natural tendency to combine media comes from in-depth knowledge and exploration of materials and processes that lend themselves to interoperability.

She also stresses spontaneity and humor in her work.

"Monotypes are not that technical. You can work spontaneously," she said. "The technique gives you all the freedom in the world."

Her 2004 "Diet" solo show at Silvermine focused on the uniquely American obsession with dieting. The show featured an elliptical machine adorned with flowers and facing a mirror, small paintings of gigantic sandwiches and diet prototypes, as well as interactive scales for audiences to check their weight.

"People walked into the exhibit space and started laughing. They stepped on the scales and read slogans like 'Dr. Atkins For Life' and 'Sugarbusters'."

Unlike many contemporary conceptual artists, Karpinskaia does not pay homage to the grotesque or seek to enthrall through shock value, however.

"Reality can be a mixed bag, and in this sense, I am more of a conservative," she said. "I want to see a great idea rendered in a gorgeous way."

She draws inspiration from the likes of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell and Agnes Martin, but most of all, from her mentor Constance Kiermaier.

"She does constructions, boxes, collages and assemblages. I consider her a second mother because she gave me a new life in art," she said.

Karpinskaia belongs to the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery, the Silvermine Guild of Art, Loft Artists Association, Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Conn. and Union of Moscow Artists.

She is represented by Susan Calloway Fine Arts in Washington, D.C., Artists' Space in New York and Silvermine Guild Art Center in Conn.

To visit the artist's website, click here.