COLLEKTON
···
Portrait of Sandro Kopp

Painter

Sandro Kopp

Painting · Portrait · Abstraction

*14.02.1978, Heidelberg (DE / NZ) — lives and works in the Scottish Highlands

Browse all works →sandrokopp.com ↗

About

Painting presence at a distance

Sandro Kopp, born 1978 in Heidelberg of New Zealand and German descent, is a painter best known for figurative portraiture and a sustained inquiry into mediated presence. Trained outside the German academy, he emigrated to New Zealand in 2000, studied in Wellington, and since 2006 has lived and worked in the Highlands of Scotland.

His Skype Portraits (begun in 2011) — sitters painted from life over a video call — were among the earliest serious painterly responses to the webcam as a sitting room, anticipating much of what followed. Subsequent bodies of work — Feedbackloop, Take Time, Transitional Objects, The New Me, Bodyweb Nudes, the Rosenthaler Suite, the French Dispatch Paintings, Eye Portraits and most recently Galaxcells — keep returning to the same questions: how a face holds someone, what happens to a portrait when the sitter is somewhere else, and where the body ends and the world begins.

Kopp has shown at Lehmann Maupin (New York), Victoria Miro (London), Palazzo Grimani (Venice), the Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris), Slag Gallery (New York), Ebensperger (Berlin / Salzburg / Vienna) and Milford Galleries (Dunedin). His work has been written on by Hilton Als, Jasper Sharp, Bill Arning, Mark Stafford and Camilla Nicholls. Alongside painting, he was co-producer and creature designer on Bong Joon-ho’s film Okja (2017).

Exhibitions

Selected exhibitions

Solo and group exhibitions from 2007 to today.

  • 2024

    Galaxcells — Milford Galleries, Dunedin (NZ)

  • 2023

    Am Seegarten — Kirchmoeser, Berlin (DE)

  • 2022

    Glimpses (pop-up) — London (UK)

    The Rosenthaler Suite Redux — Neulich I’m Hernals, Vienna (AT)

    The Rosenthaler Suite Variation — Ebensperger Vitrine, Graz (AT)

    Doch (retrospective) — Mannheimer Kunstverein (DE)

    The Rosenthaler Suite — Ebensperger, Berlin (DE)

  • 2021

    “Simone, Naked, Cell Block J, Hobby Room” — Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris (FR)

    The French Dispatch Exhibition — 180 The Strand, London (UK)

    New Abstracts — RX Galerie, Paris (FR)

    Scapes — Slag Gallery, New York (US)

    Intensive Care Units — Sammlung Friedrichshof, Vienna (AT)

  • 2020

    Freedom and Independence — Ebensperger, Berlin (DE)

  • 2019

    mEYEcelium — Palazzo Grimani Museum, Venice (IT)

  • 2017

    Okja (film) — co-producer and creature designer

    Played — Ebensperger, Salzburg (AT)

    Elective Affinities — Sammlung Friedrichshof, Vienna (AT)

  • 2016

    Take Time — Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris (FR)

  • 2015

    Feedbackloop — Five Eleven, New York (US)

  • 2014

    Sono Qui — Otto Zoo, Milan (IT)

    Analogue — Galerie Antoine Laurentin, Paris (FR)

  • 2013

    Cinematic Visions — Victoria Miro Gallery, London (UK)

  • 2012

    Mediated Presence — 6 Fitzroy Square, London (UK)

    There You Are — Lehmann Maupin, New York (US)

  • 2011

    Krauts Projects: in/sights — Heidelberg (DE)

    Being with You — IST festival, Istanbul (TR)

    Pixel+Paint+Time — Suite Gallery, Wellington (NZ)

  • 2010

    Krauts Projects: Kunst/Halle — Heidelberg (DE)

    Artist Residency — TSKW, Florida (US)

    Not a still Frame — Brachfeld Gallery, Paris (FR)

  • 2009

    Krauts Projects: Go Figure — Frankfurt (DE)

  • 2008

    PRESENT — HP Garcia Gallery, New York (US)

    Krauts Projects: Creative Clash — Mannheim (DE)

    Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh — BP Awards (UK)

  • 2007

    Junge Kunst 69 — Heidelberger Kunstverein (DE)

    The National Portrait Gallery, London — BP Awards (UK)