Kevin Cobb in Columbia University Artist Conversation

Columbia University invited VillageOneArt collaborative artist Kevin Cobb to a conversation that referenced his paintings to discuss the art that compels him to see and create in new ways.

CU: Can we talk about the logic of signs and symbols in your work? 

KC: There are two different parts to my practice when I am painting from this through-my-body point of view. There is a part where I want to be very literal: I want to share how I feel or how I see the world from a very pulled back first person point of view and literal way of thinking about it. In that sense, I also want to deprive or remove content or the idea of design from that. I want to express the idea that how I see the world in a given moment is the totality of what I’m aware of. For example, Rainbow Pumpkin, which is a still life of the things that were actually in my living room, is very slightly composed, and the painting serves as a vehicle for me to express this vision or to express reflecting on things…

CU: Tell me more about why that’s important to you, especially in contemporary painting as well as in your own work.

KC: I think that part of the purpose of art, from the artist’s perspective, is to share themselves in some way. Art is essentially self-portraiture… I think it was Wittigstein who linked aesthetics and ethics, he said they were similar, and in a way one’s ethical positions are also embedded in their painting. Maybe my style of relating to people must include sharing lots of context and also trying to say things just right. Paying a lot of attention to a subject by giving it all of the subtle variations of light and darkness and the balance of those things is part of my preferred ethics for painting. Everything that has light on it also has a shadow, and there are other relational contrasts that constitute reality as we observe it, and I want to be fair to all of the subjects that I paint.