Art & Life with Rosabel Rosalind Kurth-Sofer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosabel Rosalind Kurth-Sofer.

Rosabel Rosalind, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I think my story would begin with my large gay male nanny named Paul, who raised me for the first seven years of my life. After long days of Torah study and Hebrew lessons at my conservative Jewish elementary school, Paul would pick me up and take me to the West Hollywood thrift shops to hang out with his colorful friends and let me crawl on the floors collecting fallen jewels and beads from the racks. Paul never took anything seriously; I was raised to always exercise my imagination and encouraged to play. I had this split life: faith and structure in the mornings and boundless adventure in the evenings. Playing with Paul celebrated the whimsical lack of structure, which, unlike my formal Jewish studies, felt more spiritual to me than anything. It facilitated celebration of the parts of myself that distinguished me from my peers. Thus, I developed an affinity for idiosyncrasy that turned the act of drawing into a necessity rather than a hobby. This is the origin story of my grotesque caricatures and exaggeratedly fantastical world. I draw as a way of questioning concepts of identity, because my identity got complicated from an early age. Paul, the man who flicked his boogers at me daily and once hung me over an alligator pond at Disneyworld for fun, is sixty now and is still my best friend.

Drawing has been my source of comfort since as early as I could muster the grip strength to hold a marker. So, when it came to investigating college options I faced my future for the first time, and when I chose art school I made the decision to turn my love for drawing into a lifestyle. I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I studied painting, drawing, and printmaking. But even after three and a half years of undergraduate study, I had intentions of only being part-time artist. My plan was to work at a floral shop and draw during my evenings, like I had done for two and a half years during my undergraduate career.

Creative individuals are too often discouraged from pursuing art full-time because it’s not financially promising. But after graduating college in December of 2017 I spent a few months travelling through Europe alone. It was there that I collected a list of unsolicited commissions that would keep me occupied during the summer when I returned. I have been painting and drawing since the second I returned from my travels and haven’t had time to even consider another option. Therefore, it was only approximately last month that I realized my dream of being a full-time artist could be my reality.

Currently I am working from my home studio in Los Angeles, California, but in September of this year I will move to Vienna, Austria for nine months on a Fulbright Grant to research Anti-Semitic art at the Jewish Museum Vienna. During this time, I will produce a series of self-portraits in response to my studies and in June of 2019 I’ll exhibit this work at a solo show at Improper Walls Gallery, a contemporary gallery in Vienna. My story is just beginning, I suppose!

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I find bliss in making lines, and making pictures with those lines- the color and the underlying message are just an aesthetic bonus. There’s just something about the directness of drawing that heals me and gives me life.

With drawing I address the psychology of the body, the ways in which the body can be ambiguous, and the complex contradictions inherent in human identity. Obsessed with the fantastical, I aim to reimagine the body and redefine what deems a body “worthy” enough for representation. Through my images I give face and voice to those that are too often regarded as unimportant. My interests have always straddled the awkward line at which the human transforms into something “other.” I give face and spirit to plants or animals or people that I feel need to be celebrated. Ultimately, my work has always aimed to celebrate.

Today I work primarily in self-portraiture. I use my face and personal memory to confront my body with respect to its flaws and challenge the definition of “self” as a rather abstract concept. Asking questions like: What happens when I put my face on a tomato? What happens when I draw my knees and call it a “portrait of the artist?”

In Vienna, this ongoing and extensive self-portrait project will push me to explore my Jewish cultural and mythological history through examining my relationship with both my Jewish body as well as my female one. What initially drew me to Anti-Semitic imagery was seeing early Jewish caricatures that engaged this concept of metamorphosis: the half-human half- “other.”

I think this upcoming project will shift my artistic priorities in really exciting and important ways. My art practice has become both a form of activism and self-care, and with it I aim to speak abstractly to a lot of current social and political issues.

What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
My experience as a working artist thus far has been self-involved, compulsive, unstable and above all else incredibly isolating. And I often ask myself (and whichever divine beings brought me here) why I have been simultaneously blessed and cursed with this lifestyle that has been so simultaneously rewarding and taxing. But then I sit and draw for eleven hours straight until my pinky cramps, and I realize nothing else could keep me occupied for eleven hours without driving me to insanity.

So yes, being an artist is incredibly lonely, but I think feelings like this are so vital to the creative process… I love Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet because he stresses this so candidly. I think it’s always important to connect with other artists via social media and events both in and out of your community. And it is equally important to stay open to all of these new artistic relationships because everybody is, and has the potential to be, an artist. But, to be honest, I still haven’t quite figured out how I want to navigate the social aspects of being an artist. Therefore, the best and most genuine advice I can give is to cherish the loneliness because, at least for me, that’s where the magic happens.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
You can find my work at:
https://rosabelrosalind.com
Though most of me in-progress shots and informal projects are posted on my Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/rosabelrosalind/

I don’t have any work exhibited at the moment, as I’m going through a transition (physically, mentally, emotionally) but I hope to show some work around Europe before my end-of-grant show in Vienna next year. I have been speaking with a few artists in the region who are interested in collaboration and have invited me to exhibit with them in group shows. You can support my work by following me on Instagram and reaching out if you’re interested in purchasing some of my work!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rosabelrosalind.com
• Phone: (818)-800-0023
• Email: rosabelrkurth@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosabelrosalind/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosabelrosalindkurth/?ref=bookmarks

Image Credit:
Courtesy of the artist

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