Burton Kopelow: Myth in the Making with John Bucher, artist David Orr, and curator Nancy Blumstein

The exhibition Myth in the Making: Burton Kopelow provides a succinct, retrospective view of Kopelow’s life as an artist, revealing a man deeply tuned to universal spiritual archetypes, Theosophy, Jung, Campbell, Tibetan thangka paintings, and Zen. Kopelow’s painting career spanned six decades of exploration, expression and invention. His bold use of color, evocative imagery and personal mythology are strongly felt in all of his art. In this conversation we learn more about his life and work from mythologist John Bucher, artist David Orr, and curator Nancy Blumstein.
Burton Kopelow produced over 3,000 pieces of art in his lifetime. He was an artist’s artist, dedicated so fully to his craft, so fully immersed in the potential of art and the ongoing creation story that binds us all, that his peers would refer to him as “the guardian of the threshold.” Perhaps it was this stewardship, this devotional practice, that dissuaded Kopelow from self-promotion: Burton’s mind, body and soul were too busy painting.
The process of creating art, he would say, is like the alchemists trying to produce gold from lead. His practice was dedicated to transcribing this transformation of the self into a higher level of being. In his words: "The world is made of archetypes and has the same images running through all kinds of cultures. Regardless of the kind of culture it is you will find the same motifs appearing and that unites everybody into one bag, so to speak, that we're all related and that appeals to me." For Kopelow, life is not only predicated by our collected and collective mythology - it is the ongoing creation of these mythologies.
“The work of Burton Kopelow touches a unique place in the human spirit. In one respect, viewing his art feels as though we are seeing again something we’ve long forgotten. The mythic qualities his work gives form to are those that artists and thinkers have considered for thousands of years and we are better because Kopelow offered us his vision of them.”
-John Bucher, PhD Executive Director, Joseph Campbell Foundation
Myth in the Making is on view until June 22, 2024 in the Hansell Gallery
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NANCY BLUMSTEIN curator, is the archivist and manager of Burton Kopelow’s work. In that capacity, she has mounted, or assisted in mounting, five shows, including "Burton Kopelow: Circling the Square" at The Philosophical Research Society, curated by David Orr. She is also the author of the monograph Burton Kopelow, Paths of Discovery. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she worked in theatre, film, and television production for many years, before changing directions to work in administration at UCLA, which gave her more time to concentrate on writing, photography, and on Kopelow’s work. She is now happy to be able to concentrate full time on these efforts.
JOHN BUCHER is a mythologist and story expert who has been featured on the BBC, the History Channel, in the LA Times, and on numerous other international
outlets . He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a writer, podcaster, storyteller, and speaker. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation. He has served as a producer, consultant, and writer for numerous film, television, and Virtual Reality projects. He is the author of six books including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times Best Selling authors, RUclips influencers, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, magicians, and cast members from Saturday Night Live. He holds a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology and has spoken on 6 continents about using the power of story and myth to reframe how individuals, organizations, cultures, and nations believe and behave.
DAVID ORR is a visual artist based in California. His work has been shown extensively in the United States and internationally in shows juried by representatives from the de Young Museum, theInternational Center for Photography, the Lucie Awards, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The New York Times, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. His work is in public collections among such artists as Ansel Adams, John Baldessari, Ruth Asawa,Jim Dine, David Hockney, The Brothers Quay, Edward Weston, and Joel-Peter Witkin. David is the founder of the Hansell Gallery and the contemporary arts program at PRS. He is a member of The Long Now Foundation.
image: Crab Nebula, Burton Kopelow
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