Sandro Kopp wants his art to exist as an antidote to death.
Waving his hands in elaborate gestures as if painting a canvas, the Kiwi-German painter thinks art should nourish a viewer in the same way as "food, music and movement" do.
The 45-year-old painter has been thinking about mortality and death a lot since last year when his now-80-year-old mother, Kayla, first became ill. He's back in New Zealand tired, jetlagged and emotional after two months in the Scottish Highlands, where he lives with his long-time partner, Academy Award-winning actor Tilda Swinton and their two dogs.
Kopp known for his colorful abstract paintings and figurative portraits, along with small portraits of the human eye - is holding his first New Zealand exhibition since 2011. GalaXcells is on show at Dunedin's Milford Galleries, and the artist describes it as his most complete show to date.
Since he began working full-time as an artist in the mid-2000s, Kopp has exhibited extensively internationally with his experimental approaches to figurative painting.
On this trip to open his exhibition, he has paused in Wellington to visit his sister and mother, who he hasn't seen for two months; in that time her health has worsened.
Kopp talks to the Listener about the emotions many adult children feel as they watch an elderly parent quickly deteriorate.
He scrolls through his phone to show a portrait he painted on a palette of his mother's eye (eye paintings are something of a Kopp signature). This one shows the translucent, wrinkled skin around it and, in her iris, the reflections of the house she lived in on Waiheke Island, which he regularly visited. He turns emotional: "I was with her just now before I came here to meet you and it's so pinching."
This story is from the March 23-29, 2024 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March 23-29, 2024 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Morning songs
On a recent early and glorious Saturday morning - it was 4°C outside I let the complaining chickens out. Chickens never stop complaining.
Upwardly mobile
Climate-friendly e-scooters are proliferating but there are stumbling blocks for users and non-users.
A potent brew
There's a correlation between moderate coffee drinking and reduced risk of colorectal cancer - but evidence of a causal link is still percolating.
Food saviours
A little bit of silliness lightens the mood on the serious topic of food waste.
Ode to old masters
The Polynesian sound and Auckland's ska-punk scene are remembered in new releases.
Weaving Welsh with waiata
Te reo meets Cymraeg in a musical project partly spearheaded by Kawiti Waetford, an opera singer with connections to Wales.
Culture warrior
Activist and scholar Ngahuia te Awek6otuku achieved several firsts in society but had to fight many battles to get there.
An age-old problem
Is our lifespan fixed, or might we be able to slow down or even abolish ageing? And what would we do if we could?
When Jim becomes James
'What would white people do to a slave who had learned to read?' This impressive reimagining of Huckleberry Finn seeks to find out.
Manhattan transfer
A Kiwi movie star led the charge for an Anzac garden atop New York's Rockefeller Centre that's still in use today.