Artist Bio
Born in Topeka, Kansas, Koepsel graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2019 with a BFA double major in Ceramics and Art History. Koepsel has worked as a Preparator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The Jesse Howard Fellow and Project Assistant at the H&R Block Artspace, and contract art handling with organizations such as the Nelson-Atkins, 21c Museum Hotels, and Open Spaces in Kansas City, MO.
Elsewhere Artist Statement
This installation shows how I use my work to process the world around me, specifically the transition from a more rural background to living in Kansas City, a location with a loaded history and in the constant flux of urbanization. I am influenced by how landscapes affect the social dynamics of the people who inhabit those spaces.
My recent sculpture is a buoyant brick floor with a passing group of unidentifiable strangers installed in the neglected pond behind my childhood home. The ceramic figures have all been altered and given a printed skin of monochromatic patterns as they stand in close proximity on a floor of red bricks, but do not interact with one another. I placed this installation in a natural and personal setting in order to juxtapose the concept of disconnection and alienation in a living environment. I want to express the irony that I perceive in the lack of communication between the inhabitants in a highly populated, urban setting.
This creek is where I spent my time and created most of my childhood memories by exploring with the other neighborhood kids. In Kansas City, I have only lived in populated apartment complexes but I do not know my neighbors, and walk busy streets surrounded by strangers. I want to express the disconnect I feel socially and internally with my changing and coexisting circumstances. Through sculpting and siting these figures, I have a strong feeling of empathy and create a visual language by which I express my associations between body and place.