Jesse Kauppila
I am an interdisciplinary artist. My work is systematic and iterative. I am primarily interested in developing, realizing, and analyzing process based projects.
I love technology, cities, and the modern world, but I grew up in stunning rural Vermont in a family that values tradition and craftsmanship. I came to understand my experience as a child as “authentic” and “real.” Through my work I explore how abstract ideas, aesthetics, and technologies, such as I grew up with, can shape our experience of the world.
After graduating from high school I was trained as a master printer and worked in world class print shops including Wingate Studios, Niels Borch Jensen’s , and Crown Point Press. Crown Point helped me transform what was my craft into a conceptual practice.
I recently worked as Studio Manager for Professor Catherine Wagner. I managed large-scale public art projects and worked with a team of programmers, engineers, and architects. I learned how Catherine’s exquisite aesthetic, which she developed through photography, has led to the success of her public art projects.
After studying Art History at Reed College I began to seriously make art and I had an epiphany. I realized I could do anything, irrespective of precedent or preconception. This was a simple, but profound realization. I resolved to create processes that I found interesting and rewarding. Since then I have developed a studio practice that functions as a set for performative creation.
