Elijah Kauffman

Statement:

The majority of my paintings are monochrome, where the energy from saturated color brings a living room or a highway into a world of emotional urgency. Settings that naturally repeat in the work are the bedroom, the car and the public park. I watch a lot of teen dramas, where these locations are regularly the backdrop for paradigm-shifting events. The figures I paint age with me. Settings for my work are moving into domestic spaces that I had no interest in growing up, like the kitchen or living room. As new milestones emerge, I am interested in continuing to mythologize them.

I am obsessed with symmetrical and cyclical compositions as a way to signify that an action or figure is divine. Cyclical as in recurrent, flowing into itself. When I am planning a painting I am always looking for ways to bend arms and legs to mirror each other, or direct the viewer’s eye around the canvas in a loop. I often use everyday props such as a candle, a smart phone, or a tattoo gun to capture monumental moments. I think this is because any object can feel magical when playing a part in the right composition. It is really the relationship between figures that creates the sensational atmosphere I aim for in each painting.