A Conversation with Artist Emily Coan
Emily Coan
On myth and tarot, the slow cycle of the studio, and the role of artists in an age of uncertainty.
Some painters report on the world. Emily Coan builds one. Working from a small hamlet in the Hudson Valley, she paints in layers and cycles, drawing on Greek myth and Disney princesses, Northern Renaissance altarpieces and the archetypes of astrology and tarot, to make images that feel both ancient and entirely her own.
A sculpture major turned painter, she found her way to galleries in New York and London, and to a practice she describes as full of purpose. We talked about her process, the pandemic that brought her upstate, what wellbeing actually means, and why she believes artists have a part to play in the symphony of our humanity.
Antakly Projects · Women in the Arts · In the Studio
Bridesmaids, oil on canvas, 34 x 26 in, 2021.
Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Monya Rowe Gallery.
Emily Coan lives and works in a small hamlet in the Hudson Valley. Before the pandemic she spent five years in Brooklyn, and she is eager to get back to New York City. Seeing artworks in person rather than online or in print was a turning point in her life and her work, and after much practice and experimentation she landed her first big group show, Seed, curated by Yvonne Force at Paul Kasmin Gallery in 2018.
The following year she had her first New York solo show at Barney Savage Gallery in Tribeca, and in 2020 her first international solo show at Unit London. She then joined the roster at Monya Rowe Gallery, where she exhibited her solo show this past April. As she puts it, she loves being an artist, and is forever grateful to make a living from a practice that feels so full of purpose.
Explore more of her work, including her drawings, at emilycoan.com.
Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences?
A huge source of inspiration is myth, folktales, and storytelling. Growing up, I didn't have much exposure to art or painting, but I did have illustrated books of Greek myths and Disney princess films which shaped my world. As an adult, I'm still mesmerized by film adaptations of folklore such as Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, and Demy's Donkey Skin. In short, I love stories, expressed through words, film, ballet, song, etc. Astrology and Tarot are also major influences in my work, with each planet or card representing an archetype in concert with many other archetypes.
My first brush with contemporary art was in college as a Sculpture major. Pippilotti Rist's immersive installations were a huge source of inspiration in school. I love Louise Bourgeois equally for her work and her very personal writing. At art museums, I gravitate towards Northern Renaissance Painting. Jan Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece and Hieronymous Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights are probably my two favorite paintings of all time.
Tell us about your creative process.
My creative process is a cycle that ebbs and flows. To begin, I take downtime to read, think, and absorb. When I feel ready, I start to make small, rough drawings in a sketchbook. Drawing from the small sketches, I begin composing works on large paper with charcoal or graphite. Once the compositions are worked out, I make small works on panel, then scale up to work the same composition on a larger stretched canvas. The paintings each have about 3 to 5 layers. I work in batches, rotating between works. They all are finished around the same time.
Towards the end of the cycle is my favorite time to work. You know exactly what the paintings are going to look like, and every day in the studio you are chipping away at the marble (so to speak) to reveal the final form.
How has the pandemic affected your creativity and how do you see the world change as we move forward?
The pandemic brought me upstate to be closer to my partner Jake's family. Dramatically cutting back on social time was at times devastating, but it also provided time for reflection. It was probably easier to be a painter or visual artist with a studio practice in the pandemic than any other type of artist or performer. I'm very happy with how my solo show with Monya Rowe Gallery turned out. Those works were a turning point, certainly made possible through the experience of the pandemic.
The world is changing rapidly. It is truly a wild time to be alive. Americans are reckoning with the horrors on which our idealistic republic was built: slavery and genocide, a starkly divided populace, and the breakdown of our country's infrastructure, material, social, and otherwise. This summer in upstate New York, where we expect to be insulated from the effects of climate change, we were subjected to weeks-long, crop-ruining rains, and severely polluted air from wildfires on the West Coast and Canada. It has become clear that we all are in the thick of it. I believe artists have their part to play in the symphony that is our humanity.
Artists are in the unique position to express our collective hopes and fears in this new era of uncertainty, albeit through a more diffuse form of communication, the visual image.
Icons in your opinion?
I mean… Beyoncé, Britney. I do wonder if the nature of being an icon in our society is changing. People in the public eye, now more than ever, are being fully audited. Maybe it would be better if we didn't give people (who are by nature fallible) the status and power of Gods?
Who are your favorite artists, curators, or other thinkers to follow on social media right now?
A couple of Instagram accounts that I'm enjoying at the moment are Balarama Heller and Anastasiya Tarasenko. Balarama Heller's photographs feel mystical and earthy at the same time, and I enjoy his Instagram stories, which show clips of New York City through his eyes. Anastasiya Tarasenko curates the weirdest collection of reposts on Instagram stories, in a way that feels genuine and complements their work.
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Well-being to me means living in accordance with my most authentic self, which is in communication with the rest of the world. I will always be mining the depths to understand who I am at the core, who I actually am. There's a lot of de-programming that needs to be done. I'm trying to become more grounded and stable. I have problems with over-indulging. Astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo once said that the archetype for Pluto is a "trash can addict" and that is something I relate to.
Well-being has come to mean tempering these obsessive impulses. Some practices I use are breathing with intention each evening, movement and stretching with breath awareness each morning, and my studio practice.
Anything else you'd like to share?
I want to live to be 100 years old.
Visuals courtesy of the artist and Monya Rowe Gallery. Follow Emily Coan at emilycoan.com.
Part of the Antakly Projects Women in the Arts archive, conversations with the painters shaping how we see. Read all interviews here.
Stay curious,
