ARTIST KOTTIE PALOMA
Artist’s studio
Artist Spotlight · Antakly Projects
KottiePaloma
Fossils of contemporary life — painting the darker side of society with a gritty, humorous hand
Kottie Paloma makes paintings that feel like they were scratched into the wall of a cave by someone who'd seen too much. Heavily influenced by ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and pre-Columbian art — as much as by the 20th century avant-garde — his work operates as contemporary fossil record: documenting politics, human behaviour, solitude, and the dark comedy of modern life in expressive lines and shapes that feel both timeless and urgently of-the-now.
Born in Los Angeles, raised in Huntington Beach, shaped by San Francisco's music scene and years of living between Berlin, Brooklyn, and Bavaria — Paloma is a genuine product of restlessness. He is in the studio five to seven days a week. He does not know how to relax. And the paintings are better for it.
His figures are haunting and whimsical at once — inviting viewers to sit with the often-contradictory nature of existence. After a solo show at Ruttkowski 68 in Paris, and with new gallery relationships forming across multiple countries, we caught up with Kottie about his process, his icons, and what it means to make work from a studio in northern Bavaria.
01 · Origins
Tell us about yourself.
I was born in Los Angeles and raised in Huntington Beach. When I was 21 years old — in 1996 — I moved to San Francisco to start my art career and be a part of the SF music scene. In 2009 I moved to Berlin where I met my now wife. Then we moved to Brooklyn for three years, then back to Berlin for four years, then to Los Angeles for five years. Now we are in Alzenau, Germany, which is the northern tip of Bavaria. It's beautiful and I finally have the perfect large studio. I am in the studio five to seven days a week.
02 · Influences
Kottie — your greatest inspirations or influences?
I'm greatly influenced by art of the 20th century and equally inspired by ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, cave paintings, and ancient art of the Americas. Music is also a huge inspiration. I hope in my next life I will have the skills to be a musician.
03 · Process
Tell us a bit about your creative process and things you are looking forward to this year.
I usually get to the studio around 9 in the morning and spend around three hours prepping canvases and paper for the day. Then I have lunch and then finally around 1pm I lay down my first brush strokes. I work on average till 5 or 6pm. In Los Angeles I would start and finish a painting in a day, but my process here in Germany has slowed down a lot.
I just had a solo show at Ruttkowski 68 in Paris which was absolutely amazing. I'm working with a few different galleries in different countries now and am very excited about the coming year of exhibitions.
"
Every time we as a planet take a step forward, we eventually take two steps back — and this is very frustrating.
— Kottie Paloma
04 · The World
How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?
As much as I hated the first lockdown in Los Angeles, I was fortunate to still get to my studio every day and somehow it opened the art world up to me. It was during the lockdown I met most of the galleries I'm working with now. Now I'm in Germany and we're in another lockdown, so there's nothing really to do other than come to my studio and keep producing art.
Having the larger studio has allowed me to experiment more within the confines of what I was doing in Los Angeles. I'm not sure how the world will move forward, but it seems like every time we as a planet take a step forward, we eventually take two steps back — and this is very frustrating.
05 · Icons
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
Most of my icons are dead. I would say it's the media who decides who the world's icons are on a mainstream level. But for me I consider Iggy Pop as a major icon. John Dwyer from the band Thee Oh Sees is a close friend who I consider an icon. My daughter is a huge fan of the Pink Panther and he is becoming an icon of mine — he deals with so much shit but never gives up.
06 · The Art World
Do you think the art world needs to change, and if so how can it be improved?
I think the art world has been going through a major change over the last several years. In the American art world it's closely linked to the current civil rights movement — and it's nice to see that people of color and women are getting the well-deserved spotlight they finally deserve. Though I have to say that the secondary market is absolutely nutters and I wish there was more support for the emerging market.
07 · Wellbeing
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Ha — I wouldn't be the person to give advice on this topic because I'm such a workhorse and don't even know how to relax. I'm so restless and it's something I should work on. My wife sends me meditation videos and sometimes I'll set aside thirty minutes in the day to explore that.
Icons & Influences
Iggy Pop
The original punk survivor. Raw, uncompromising, still standing.
John Dwyer
Thee Oh Sees. Close friend. A tireless creative force.
Pink Panther
Deals with everything thrown at him. Never gives up. His daughter's hero — now his too.
Cave Painters
Unknown. Ancient. The first mark-makers — documenting the world as they found it.
Ancient Egypt
Symbolic language. Archetypal forms. A visual code that survived millennia.
The 20th Century
Expressionism, abstraction, punk, protest — the whole wild century of it.
The Journey
Recent & Current
