Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Coplin.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
While attending the New York School of Interior Design. a friend invited me to a figure-drawing class at his teacher’s loft in Little Italy. We climbed five flights of stairs to a studio furnished with a grand piano and full-sized sculptures of the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Venus de Milo. Incredible paintings were everywhere. We settled in and began sketching the model.
Eventually, Frank Mason, NA, came down to critique our work. A National Academician and a member of the Sovereign Knights of Malta, he had received the Cross of Malta. The studio’s distinctive smell and atmosphere—and Frank himself—made me want to drop everything and study with him.
My wife, Jo-Ann Lowney, and I studied with Frank at the Art Students League of New York for eight years. He was an inspiring and exciting instructor and made his mark on hundreds of students through his career at the League. When he told us we were ready to begin our careers, we set out on our own.
The same friend who had introduced me to the drawing class later invited us to join him in Phoenix, where the art scene was booming. Along the way, we were accepted into several galleries, from.
We left our New York apartment expecting to stay in Arizona for six months. Instead, we have been here for 40 years, ,.
For many years, we lived in an East Valley art colony, where we had ten artist studios, taught art classes, and operated a retail art-supply and framing store and a gallery. We have since moved to Phoenix, where we have a gallery, studios, and a living loft. In Phoenix, we have established the Museum of Arizona Artists (MOAZA), a venue for chronicling the history of Arizona through the eyes of its artists from prehistoric times into the future.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The first challenge was to establish ourselves in the artist community, because it is often through a referral from another artist that one gets a chance to be represented by a dealer who understands your work and is able to sell it. That is the biggest challenge of all. Another challenge is to find a place to work and the time and money to pay for it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My work encompasses the human figure, focusing on the life experiences that confront us.
I am a realist figurative painter. I also enjoy painting landscapes en plein air. I work in the mediums of drawing, oil painting, pastel, sculpture, and Intaglio printmaking. I use no photographs; everything is done from life. I believe the inspiration needs to come through the artist, not the machine.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I am a representational artist who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I have been able to find new ways to express myself because of the disease and its inexorable progression.
Pricing:
- The Drinkers, Oil on canvas, 46 x 64″, $8500
- Mad Dance, Oil on canvas, 48 x 60″ $8500
- Life Fraft, Oil on canvvas, 63 x 85″. $10,000
- Titania and Bottom, Oil on canvas, 56 x 38″, $6000
- Vanitas, Oil on canvas, 34 x 40″ $4500
Contact Info:
- Website: https://joelcoplinfineart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coplin_joel/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090663942141
