An Interview with Contemporary Artist Robin Okun
What often makes artists impactful is their ability to create art that is both uber personal and serves a universal narrative. For contemporary women artists, like Okun, the key lies in the ability to create extremely personal artwork that also serves as an indication of the universal experiences of womanhood. Okun has made her artistic focus the relationship between women and their own bodies.
For Okun, color is a guiding factor in expressing her emotions. What results is a dispersion of bold and vivid coloration across the canvas.
Okun’s somewhat mysterious figures promote an awareness of body diversity and insecurities that women might face. The figures exist often in hazy, colorful environments that help link the viewers subconscious emotions to what they are seeing. Okun’s goal is for viewers to connect to the visual narratives in her works and for it to be a healing process.
“I paint layers of color to create visual experiences that activate conscious and unconscious feelings and emotions. I experience color as a conduit to personal and collective healing.”
~robin
Her recent series of works include, Momma, Conversations, Truth in Our bodies, Here I am, Curiosity, In the studio, and What’s going on.
Despite her vulnerability, I find myself wanting more… in the best of ways.
Fortunately for me, Okun agreed to sit down with me and chat regarding her artistic practice. Read on to find out more about her and her art.
When did you start working as an artist and, more specifically, when did you develop your unique style of art?
Almost 10 years ago during one of many life transitions and transformations, I began painting. Classes and intensives led to setting up my home studio with as many as 5 easels and 15 pieces going simultaneously. I devoted more and more time and intention developing my craft. One thing led to another, and I received attention that fueled my confidence, visibility, and productivity. It is deeply rewarding to know that my work is in private collections and in juried art exhibits throughout the country. As for the development of my style, which you describe as unique, thank you so much, that is a more challenging question to answer. My work with women continues to influence the artistic themes related to the figure, femininity, and body language. I experience the body dimensionally…a container that carries stories, history, traumas…and of course the physical body is our life force and energy.
I think my artistic style has emerged organically. I am driven first and foremost by color. So, color has been a stylistic theme that is ever present and always evolving in new and different expressions. Viewing artwork, working with teachers, connecting with other artists, exploring tools, materials, and applications are a multi-layered evolution of my style, much like my paintings, which have layers of material and figures some visible, much of it not.
Again, for me, the artwork is a visual metaphor for life. I feel each of us carries layers of history that inform us consciously and unconsciously. Perhaps this is the intersection of my artistic style…
When/ why did you start incorporating charcoal in your paintings and what effect does it have on the outcome of your works?
My use of charcoal predates painting. I’ve always loved how charcoal is such a forgiving material. A mark becomes permanent only if it works and if it doesn’t, I can smudge it, erase it, draw or paint over it. Early on I used only charcoal on brown textured paper especially in live figure drawing sessions. I actually began my relationship with paint by applying color to my charcoal paper drawings. When I moved to stretch canvas, which I love because of the give of the material when the brush pushes the paint, I continued to start each piece with charcoal. Over time, I began pieces with paint as well. I will often use charcoal to experiment with changes while I’m refining parts of the piece particularly related to the figure.
You worked as a somatic psychotherapist. Can you explain what you did in this role and how this work influenced the creation of your art?
As a somatic therapist I used mind- body approaches, including movement, breath, mediation and dialogue with women to improve emotional and physical well-being. It is very rewarding work. The painting of women and their bodies was a natural not necessarily conscious intention. I listened to a TED talk many years ago. I wish I could remember the presenter. He described the brain that holds lots of boxes of varying sizes where none of them touch each other versus the brain that’s filled with multiple circles that overlap and touch … .nothing connected vs everything connected. I am the 2nd brain. My clinical work, writing, art, movement are all connected to the body, women, and healing. I recall a drawing class I was in many years ago at Eastern Michigan University. It was very challenging for me to draw almost everything. During our first figure drawing session the Professor looked at my work and remarked, “ah, you are not afraid of the body, Robin.”
Is there one painter, artist, person that has been an influence to you more than others?
I think this answer is different at different times in my life. I think at this moment I would have to say my dad has been my greatest influence. I can hear his voice in my head a lot, cheering me on and telling me all will be ok; that every effort is a seed that might grow or not, but keep sowing the seeds or I will never have a garden at all. He had a strong work ethic, a playful curiosity, and was a loyal friend, father, and son. I loved watching him look carefully at my art or read my writing as he considered the meaning. Sometimes he gave feedback, other times he told me didn’t get it. He had a soft, sensitive side and at other times a strong edge. I have a funny story. When I was a child, I remember sitting on the sofa at my grandparents’ house. We lived close and spent a lot of time there. My dad said he was drawing me. He would stick out his thumb like an artist who might be getting a measurement and sketch. After many minutes he shared his drawing with me. The drawing was of his thumb, and it was quite good! We of course laughed. I think he was actually quite artistic and enjoyed a few art classes when he retired. He kept much of childhood art in his “family gallery”, a collection of photos, artwork, and memorabilia. He was very sentimental. I miss him very much.
How does your work relate the unique sensitivities of a woman’s relationship to her body?
I think this is really personal of course. I think that the unusual, imperfect shapes, forms and figures in my work can activate connection to body image for many women. I remember watching two younger women laughing as they looked and spoke critically at one of my paintings that pictured a figure that was more tired, maybe saggy, and who could have been perceived as an older woman. I feel as women, many of us, are profoundly affected by the messages of our culture related to “ideal” size, age, and beauty and can challenge our sense of wellbeing in our bodies and our lives. In that sense perhaps my work provides opportunities to challenge conventional norms around women’s bodies.
What works are you currently developing? Do you have upcoming shows and exhibitions?
During COVID isolation, which took over our lives shortly after the death of my father, I was faced with an artistic block not unlike many creators at that time. I began using rollers to create tall rather statuesque abstract figures. “Alone and together” the first in this series, is a Curator pick with Ugallery, of San Francisco, a juried online gallery that represents my work. I continue developing this series.
This series segued to creating single figure modernistic figures, some of them with pattern. I am honored to have a painting, “unpacking” from this series selected as part of the Danforth Art Museum, Framingham Massachusetts, annual New England juried exhibition running June 24 through September 17, 2023.
While blues have been and continue to be a signature color in much of my work, I am currently experimenting with lighter sunnier colors of greens, yellows, vibrant pinks, reds and golds with more abstraction. My piece “against the wall”, another Curator Pick on Ugallery, bridges the tall more angular figures with the lighter brighter color palette.
“my still life” was juried into the National Associations of Women Artists NYC exhibit, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories”, which closed May 31, 2023. NAWA was founded in 1889 and is the first organization established to recognize and support professional women fine artists. My artist friends and mentors encouraged me to apply, and I was thrilled to be juried into the organization last year.
Finally, CALYX, Independent publisher of art and literature by women, since 1976, has selected two of my earlier paintings that will be included in Vol. 34, no. 1 this fall.
I am eager to continue to develop and grow artistically, pushing the edges of color and abstraction, as I paint looser and bigger.
You have said that when you are painting “there is a peaceful exhilaration that both calms me and ignites my creativity” can you describe how these two feelings fuel your production?
This is my “zone”; when I feel I am channeling something bigger than myself. It’s a space where I lose track of time and place in a way. it’s when my inner critic is nonexistent. So, this calm place allows my creativity to expand, explore, and make strong art…which for me is exhilarating.
How much of yourself and your life experiences do you think is present in your paintings?
I feel that all of my works are self-portraits in an abstract way. They reflect my relationship with my history, feelings, thoughts, relationships and body. Everything is connected for me. I think my titles are another facet of the self-portrait as well. some people come up with a title first. I title them at the completion as I sense the feeling of the piece. Naming the paintings has become an integral part of my creative practice.
How has your artwork evolved from when you first began creating?
I was just reflecting on how my artwork has evolved since I first began creating. One striking feature is apparent to me. I recently sold a painting that was about 5 years old. I loved her…I personify my paintings…she had a beautiful face with a soft expression. At that time, I was drawing or sometimes painting faces. Most of my work of late and for a while has focused just on the body in the absence of facial expressions. Since noticing this a couple of weeks ago, I have found myself thinking about working more with faces in my pieces. I love using charcoal for facial details. We shall see. I have never copied/recreated my own work and have no recollection of creating exactly what I had in mind when I started a painting.
Did you always know you wanted to be an artist?
I have always loved art, wanted to make art and have art in my life. I think it was only in my fantasy world that I always wanted to be an artist. As a child I could sit and draw for hours. I remember these drawings vividly. I would copy little girls on small pieces of paper perfecting every mark, erasing and marking again and again. When I was in the fourth grade, I was selected with one other student to attend Saturday classes at the Toledo Art Museum. Sadly, my perfectionism and loud inner critic ridiculed my drawing of a shoe and I never returned to that class or any others for a long time. So, to be a working artist is a great gift for which I am deeply grateful.
All Images are © Robin Okun
Want to see more from Okun:
Check out her website here. Follow her on Instagram @robinokunstudio
Okun’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions including; “Women’s Power Conference,” Washington, DC (2021); “Prism,” Beacon Street Gallery, Brookline, MA (2020); “Liminal Spaces,” Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA (2020); “Strength and Vulnerability,” Gathered Gallery, Toledo, OH (2019); “FULL,” Fuller Art House, Sylvania, OH (2018); “Echoes,” Women’s Caucus for Art, Curators Platform Galatea Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2018); “Bare,” River Centre Gallery, Sylvania, OH (2017); “Heat,” Women’s Caucus for Art, Boston, MA (2017); and “redefining your body narrative,” YWCA, Cambridge, MA (2016).
Want to check out her studio? You can set up a private virtual tour of her studio here.
VIRTUAL STUDIO VISIT – robin okun embody color (robinokunstudio.com)
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Caroline Haller Curation 