Felice Koenig

Painter & Sculptor

What has influenced your artwork recently?

One of my current bodies of work is loosely titled “Skin Paintings”; five of these canvases were recently featured at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in the exhibition An Overabundance of Detail. In the first painting in this series, Touch me, Touch me, Touch me, I focused on the color palette of the transparent skin on the inside of ones wrist where you can imagine seeing the blood close to the surface—a vulnerable part of the body. The rest of the paintings also relate to physical sensations, and the titles are referential to this: I Glow for You, Abrasion, Give me that old fashioned morphine… Visually this body of work appears as biomorphic skins that are transforming and reacting.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on Pharmakon, sculptural forms that have a sense of objecthood. These pieces reference pills or blood cells. Pharmakon is a Greek word that means both the cure and the disease, and on the most fundamental level the goal of these pieces is to explore an aesthetic that is both seductive and repulsive. The layers of influence are many, but in the simplest terms they relate to the experience of taking something into oneself that is supposed to be good for you, but that is also a poison. For example, medicine with its myriad of side effects or world news that informs us but can leave us feeling helpless. Some of these pieces will be shown at Indigo Art gallery opening this coming Friday along side works by Ani Hoover.