Sandro Kopp is a well-known modern visual artist whose works mostly have Skype as the main subject. To create his visual works of art, he blends the antiquated method of oil painting with the most widely used contemporary technology, Skype. He currently resides in Nairn, Scotland’s northern region. His works are primarily inspired by his mobile lifestyle and the distortions caused by unreliable internet connections. Impressionist master Vincent Van Gogh as well as modern artists and photographers like Ryan McGinley, David Hockey, and John Currin are some of Kopp’s main sources of inspiration. His paintings, which have been displayed all over the world, mostly include portraits of his friends, family, and partner Tilda Swinton. In addition to painting, Kopp has contributed to other areas of the film industry, taken still photos for several movies, and had small appearances in movies like “Julia.”
Career of Sandro Kopp
Sandro Kopp, a figurative artist, knew from an early age that art was his destiny. He started drawing when he was just two years old, thus he has only ever painted. When Kopp was seven years old, his first show was held at the nearby tertiary learning center in Germany, the Skill Institute. Even though his parents divorced when he was young, they always supported his desire to be an artist, which enabled him to pursue a career in the arts. Kopp, who lives out of a suitcase, keeps a portable studio in his backpack that he uses as inspiration strikes. This nomadic lifestyle influences his decision to paint Skype portraits using live sitting.
Sandro Kopp’s unique designs always strive to showcase cutting-edge technology within the antiquated medium of oil painting. Since 2009, Kopp has been painting Skype portraits, and in doing so, he has discovered a unique artistic path that no other modern artist is pursuing. The notion for painting figures actually came to him over a Skype talk with jeweler and close friend Waris Ahluwalia, who was the guard in Wes Anderson’s “Darjeeling Limited.”
The artist initially started the project by painting Ahluwalia just for fun, but after seeing the results, she realized how exclusive the Skype procedure is. In April 2010, Kopp started working on his series “Not a Still Frame (Hybrid)” while seated in a room using Skype to capture individuals on canvas while his partner, Tilda Swinton, was filming for a movie. His broad brushstrokes, visual distortions, and the amplification of pixilation present in the portraits give away his abstract style of figurative painting. In addition, he painted portraits of well-known individuals like Haider Ackerman, Ryan McGinley, and Waris Ahluwalia in his 2012 exhibition “There You Are” at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York. These portraits were created over the course of several hours via Skype.
In his 2014 debut solo exhibition, “Son Qui,” at Otto Zoo in Milan, Sandro Kopp delved into two pieces: “The New Me” and “You Are There.” One was a month-long series of many self-portraits painted over the course of a month, and the other was a collection of Skype-posed nude photos taken by friends and family. Even though Kopp has kept Skype as his primary emphasis, he continuously innovates and strives to offer something new to each of his series.
He demonstrated his focus on Skype in its current context in his 2015 show “Feedbackloop” by painting figures across sluggish Wi-Fi until they were completely abstract. His most recent Paris exhibition, “Take Time,” which took place in 2016, featured a fresh batch of pictures of him, his companion and actress Tilda Swinton, and his companions. Unlike his earlier Skype portraits, which featured people painted in live sittings against simple backgrounds, this series was an accumulation of 13 years of work. In contrast to his contemporaries, Kopp’s art is distinct, organic, inventive, and classic since it consistently combines the old with the contemporary. He keeps experimenting with figurative paintings, but in fresh and different ways each time.
Individual Life of Sandro Kopp
On February 14, 1978, Sandro Kopp was born in Heidelberg, Germany. When he was a little child, his mother, Kayla, a lecturer, and father, Hermann Kopp, an architect, separated. Kopp was raised in a German village by his mother, a New Zealander, who constantly supported his artistic abilities as a painter and illustrator. In addition to his mother, he had support from his art instructor, who assisted him in organizing his very first solo exhibition.
In 1998, Sandro Kopp completed his studies at the University-Preparatory School in Germany, specializing in English and Fine Arts. He relocated to Wellington, New Zealand later in 2000, where he spent a year studying and working as an art teacher at an art school before making a permanent move to Nairn, Scotland. Tilda Swinton, an Academy Award–winning actress and his inspiration, has been his partner since 2004.
Net worth of Sandro Kopp
The estimated net worth of Sandro Kopp is about $1 million.