Emily Kepulis
Emily Kepulis is a mixed media painter and muralist currently working out of Portland, Oregon, United States. Raised in the Midwest, she made her way to the Pacific Northwest in 2012 and graduated from Portland State University, where she studied drawing, painting, printmaking, and creative writing. Her paintings have been shown around the United States, Canada, and the UK, most recently at Blue Shop Galleries in London and Soft Times Gallery in San Francisco, California. She has been commissioned for murals in both residential and commercial spaces, notably at Teton Lunch Counter in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a ceiling mural at the entrance of Kimpton Hotel Enso in San Francisco. You can find her writing at the online magazine The Gravity of the Thing as well as in her first solo printed publication titled Water Briefed. Her paintings have been published in New Visionary Magazine, Suboart Magazine, and I Like Your Work Magazine.
Artist Statement
Kepulis’s work explores the concepts of home and identity, and how they are shaped by memory and experiences, which are recurrently changing and nonlinear. Materializing into imagined landscapes that often give home to soluble, ambulating figures, Kepulis’s paintings acknowledge home as a physical place as well as a place within the body and a locus of perception. Each layer takes on an immortal quality, albeit much of the time buried by more paint, reflecting the impermanence and adaptability of all we call home, all we call selfhood, as well as their permanence in the present moment and in memory. As Kepulis falls deeper into her considerations of home and self, she has started to reference family photos, artwork from her lineage, and anonymous found photos in further exploration of how our identities are shaped by our families, the society that surrounds us, and our perceptions of ourselves. In layering paint, image, pencil, and archive, Kepulis rehearses the cobbling together of self: personally, socially, ancestrally, and spiritually.
www.emilykepulis.com
Can you describe the core themes and emotions you explore in your current body of work?
In my work, I explore themes like home and selfhood, specifically how they are shaped by memory and experiences. These concepts are always malleable, nonlinear, and ultimately based on perspective. I acknowledge home as a physical place, as well as a place within the body and a locus of perception. I'm interested in how we are shaped by our surroundings, our perceptions of ourselves, and our attachment to the self in relation to the whole: what humanness means personally, socially, ancestrally, and spiritually.
How does your creative process unfold from concept to completion?
When coming up with a concept for a painting, I usually begin by looking through old family photos, anonymous found photos, and my own past paintings, and I’ll end up referencing a combination of these things for the final composition. I don’t fully plan out any of my paintings, so I never know what they'll look like until finished. There are so many decisions to make when working from a place of uncertainty, and practicing this way has taught me what my intuition sounds and feels like. There is tension in the decision-making moments, and in time, that intuition comes in as an assuring voice, urging yet unattached. Painting has been one of my greatest teachers in self-trust. I’m still pleasantly surprised when I step back and see one finished. I hold both that trust and surprise at the same time in the same space and value them equally.
What inspires you most outside of the visual arts, and how does it influence your work?
I love fashion, texture in fabrics, clashing patterns that work together, and patterns in nature. I love a good metaphor, especially a combination of words you wouldn’t normally see together, working so well together to reveal something familiar in a new light. I'm inspired by anything that shifts perspective and ultimately our personal realities. This influences the compositions of my paintings and the way I react to each decision I make in my process.
How do you navigate the balance between personal expression and the commercial aspects of your career?
That balance usually adapts based on what projects I’m working on. I try new things to see what feels good at that moment. Right now, I spend more time painting from a place of personal expression and usually only consider the commercial influence when doing a specific commission.
What message or feeling do you hope viewers take away from experiencing your art?
I hope viewers are visually stimulated by my paintings initially, and ultimately, I hope they find them beautiful and thought/emotion-provoking. I want viewers to find themselves dreaming a little.
