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Born in Slovenia, Evgen Čopi Gorišek (b. 1994), is currently based in Bassano del Grappa. Never receiving a formal art education, he decided to pursue art as a career after visiting an exhibition by pop art masters while living in Slovenia. Taken by the two-dimensional compositions of the genre, its powerful colors, and the compelling messages conveyed by popular imagery, he began developing his own artistic approach. Reflecting his focus on portrait art, his images have faces that lack three-dimensionality and features rendered unclear in simple lines like the scrawling of a child.
In contrast, the figures’ arms and legs are depicted concretely and three-dimensionally, along with the clothing and accessories they wear as well as their bags, and backgrounds that they occupy. This contrast with the representation of faces evokes an ironic quality. The most prominent characteristic of the artist’s portrait images is the fact that the figures in his different paintings all show similar smiles. Yet as viewers look at those uniform smiles, they cannot gauge the internal depth or sincerity. This is effectively symbolic of contemporary society and its lack of true communication, while the sleek surfaces —created with oil sticks and acrylics-draw analogies with the culture of social media images, in which no blemishes are allowed. This way, Čopi Gorišek shows figures sporting the same smiles against sleek surfaces, presenting a new form of pop art that captures issues drifting through the contemporary era.
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Hi Evgen! It’s a pleasure to sit down with you! First question that I always ask. How does a regular day look like for you in Bassano del Grappa?
Evgen: It´s a pleasure talking with you ! I am a pretty early person, so I wake up between 6-7:30 am usually, have a breakfast and coffee routine with checking art and sport news. I have my current studio set at home so around 10am I go to my studio where I paint until lunch time when my girlfriend comes home so we eat together. After lunch I go play golf for few hours if its nice weather and go back to studio in late afternoon, and some days I just dedicate whole day to my studio, but I try to balance it always with some sports. In the evenings we go for a walk with my girlfriend and our two dogs and then have a dinner at home and chill the rest of the evening watching movies or some series. That´s pretty much my every day routine.
I’m curious, growing up in Slovenia, what kind of kid were you? What did you enjoy doing, and how did you spend your time?
Even: As a kid I used to be into sports and always dreamed to become a professional athlete until aged 16 when I turned way more towards art. I grew up in small town on the seaside of Slovenia until I was 19 years old and moved to capital city Ljubljana for studding sculpture at Academy of Fine Arts and Design there. But the most important part before that, being into sports was discovering skateboarding which was the first thing really connected with art and creativity. Seeing skateboard graphics, different bands cover graphics and all that leading me into graffiti which was sort of a start of my artistic journey before painting canvases. So my teenage years in Slovenia where all about going skateboarding during the days and evening and nights painting on the streets. After a while I started exploring abounded houses or factories where I always loved to go paint on their walls and kind of make them alive again. So many great memories and that was also one of the reasons why choosing Berlin afterwards, as it had such a big history and reputation for graffiti and street art.
I know you recently moved to Italy, after living in Berlin for many years. Why did you move? And what has that transition been like?
Evgen: The main reason for leaving Berlin was, that I got tired of its weather. The winters were very long and mostly grey so I wanted a change. I first came back home to Slovenia for a year and was deciding where to move next. I was deciding between Milan and Paris at first. I was visiting Milan pretty often and I was lucky enough to meet the love of my live at the end there. She was living in a smaller city close to Venice called Bassano del Grappa where I moved to afterwards. It was the easiest and nicest transition I have ever made. I couldn’t be happier.
Moving from a big city to a small town surrounded by beautiful nature, has that influenced your practice in any way?
Evgen: Yes definitely. It was such a great thing to do this change. I grew up in such an environment so it wasn’t nothing new to me, but after living in big cities for 10 years I was happy to make this change. At a younger age I was definitely excited to go to a big city where all the galleries and museums were and a lot of artists were living, and to see and experience the whole scene was one of the best things in my life. But I guess after turning 30 last year, I started to change my lifestyle which also led me to different environment to live in. All of that also affected my creative practice and inspiration. Slowly leaving my main focus on figurative painting and getting more and more interested in landscapes, nature and animals, which I kind of lost connection by living in a cities for such a long period. Which was also the reason I was that focused on figurative painting. It became a new chapter in creativity, new inspiration, new focus and overall just a fresh exciting start diving into a new chapter.
I know you’re self taught, but when did you start painting, and when did you start taking being an artist seriously?
Evgen: I did art in high school before going to study sculpture, so I got some formal painting education, but I wanted to learn more sculptural techniques that I wasn’t able to do alone. That was the main reason choosing to study sculpture. I did paint after school all the time and my main focus was always on painting. I am getting more and more into sculpture again at this moment. I started being an artist seriously when I was 17, after seeing this big pop art show at my home town and seeing some documentaries from Basquiat, Warhol and Banksy`s “Exit Through The Gift Shop” film, which were part of that pop art show. Seeing all of that blew my mind, and it clicked in my head that I want to do these things as well, and that’s when I decided that I want to become an artist.
Ok Evgen, with these next series of questions, I will try to delve into your work as best as possible. So, you’ve be come a renowned artist, and your figurative work of blurred characters with signature smiles, is easy recognizable. But after several years, you’ve actually chosen to change your signature style and bring landscape paintings into your focus. Can you tell me about that? What inspired this drastic change?
Evgen: For me being an artist is a continuous, never ending, growing and exploring lifelong process. Even before making those recognizable blurred characters, I was doing different type of styles and directions of work. We have to go through different periods of our creative practice and while going through that we get older, we experience and see more things in life which simultaneously affect on our practice. I was 25 years old when I moved to Berlin and discovered airbrush after seeing Austin Lee’s solo show at Peres Projects, that blew me away.
I was spray painting before already, but airbrush allowed me to get into more precision on the canvas. So soon after by messing around in my studio, I came up with these smiley characters that developed into the blurred airbrushed characters I got known for and also made my career. After 5 years of painting them and trying all kind of different approaches to paint those figures I came to a point where I felt being at the end of something which wasn’t exciting anymore and I felt empty, with zero satisfaction after completing works. It was a great sign that it was time for a new beginning, a new chapter and a start of a new journey.
Together with me moving and making a new life in a completely different environment, being surrounded by completely new people affected a lot on inspiration and ideas of what I wanted to create. I`ve turned 30 last July and not because it`s 30, but I kind of felt getting to a new period of my life, before still feeling being this young kid and now becoming more mature and wiser in all kind of ways in life. Last October I did this amazing artist residency in Los Cabos in Mexico, which was the turning point where I decided to finally start the new chapter. I have experienced the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen in my life and the landscape there was so incredible that it pushed me for the first time in my life to paint landscapes and nature inspired works that I am still developing and exploring at the moment back in my studio in Italy.
I started to feel very present again while observing and watching with my eyes, the landscapes and being often in the nature feeling very connected with it again. It’s always hard at the beginning because you don’t know where it will bring you and how it will develop, but that is the beauty about that, and I’d really missed that same feeling I got 5 years ago, with the blurred characters. Exploring the unknown and being curious. I think that great things happen only when you go out of your comfort zone. So I am at the beginning now of this new chapter in life and couldn’t be more excited about where it will bring me in the future.
So would you say you’re completely done with your signature figures? For now at least?
Evgen: I wouldn’t say that I am completely done with them, but I think it is in a way a chapter that I closed, and went forward with my practice. Maybe in some time it will call me back again, but at the moment I have not much of an interest in it. The only thing I do want to continue now is the first type of smiley characters that I did at the beginning, and convert them into merchandise and kind of a clothing brand. But that is a plan for the next two years, to do on the side of my studio practice.
Your new works have a mystic and surreal vibe about them. What is it about this new look that resonates with you?
EVGEN: One of my main thoughts after starting on my new works, was to bring back my imagination. I always had so much imagination that I completely put aside in my last few years while mainly painting from images that I recreated, but never used much of a deep imagination. That is something I’ve missed a lot.
First big change is that I don’t plan the work in advance, I just start painting, and while working on it I get new ideas of what or where I could add something, or what it could be. I put a lot of thinking and emotions out while painting, so it’s completely unpredictable where it will go. Compared to the blurred characters before, which were so clean and precise, the focus now is going more and more almost towards abstraction, to start using new techniques and trying to add even more texture on some works.
Can’t tell you where it will go now, because I am still at the very beginning of the moment. But I like this mystic vibe, something that in a way is not real but it can be real if we decide so. I do question my self with a lot of things that also affect the way I work on the canvas afterwards and I try to put myself inside of that space that I paint. I imagine being there as a person, animal, plant or even as an energy that exists around us. With these works I started using way more brushes and hands again, and almost not touching airbrush anymore because I wanted to be more physical with my works.
But it’s not just landscapes, it’s also anatomical surrealism, mixed with islands and butterflies, pigeons, eyes, etc…. My question is: What do you look for when choosing your next motifs for your canvas?
Evgen: For my first body of work that I’m currently working on I am getting lots of ideas from a book that I found on the street in Berlin, and after a period of 4 years, I painted over all of the pages in the book. It’s a book about biology used in schools. So there is a lot of animals, plants and human body connected to things in the book, and after completing the whole book with drawings inside I thought it would be interesting to take parts of it and transform it onto canvases.
Can you tell me about your use of symbolism?
Evgen: I always used parts on my works that had symbolic meaning to me. Perhaps sometimes I don’t want to make it too clear why that thing is there, or what it means to me. But every recognizable object/part of my work represents something to me, or reminds me of something that’s part the story in the work. I already find it interesting from history, how there were always things that had symbolic meaning for something and I love it that we still use symbolism today.
Is your new work a commentary on anything specific — like the human condition, modern society, technology, or spirituality?
Evgen: Humans were always part of my practice. Maybe more specifically our minds, psychological aspects, our behavior, ways of thinking and interests. All of those things interests me a lot. Then with more traveling and experiences between different cultures those things became even more interesting. So I will definitely keep on exploring these themes. I just want to include it in nature itself, animals and the natural beauties that surround us. What’s interesting to me, is how much we lost connection with all of that as a modern society with all the technology involved in our lives and the damage we are doing to our planet, with so many actions we are doing without thinking of the consequences our future generations will have to deal with. All of those things interest me and through different series of work and techniques I want do dive even deeper into all of those themes in the future.
Some of the pieces evoke a sense of paradise, but also unease — would you say you’re exploring utopias, dystopias, or something in between?
Evgen: I would say something in between. I like to show my work the “paradise”, these beautiful moments that I have experienced in my life or that I wish I could experience. At the same time also dive into less friendly parts of our life. 10 years ago I lost my father due to cancer, and since then I’ve suffered a lot with anxiety and panic attacks that has affected my life a lot. I have been battling with it a lot since then but iv’e come far since the beginning. I’ve learned so much from this and become a much stronger person mentally since then, and this part has a big influence on my work. So I want to mix these two parts together, because also in life and nature there is always this balance. Without day there wouldn’t be night, without sad moments we wouldn’t know what happy moments are… I just want to create and find this balance in my work as well.
You mentioned some of this before, but, the human body — especially its internal systems — appears often. What role does the body play in your practice?
Evgen: In many cases it represents me or my girlfriend, or sometimes just a random person, a wanderer, an explorer in the unknown. It represents the feelings, emotions, and thoughts going through my mind. Depends on a specific work.
Can you walk me through your creative process from beginning to end result?
Evgen: I used to look for images before in magazines, social media, tv or I even took them myself sometimes, and after I recreate them on my ipad or went directly on the canvas. I sketched the image on the canvas and after airbrushed the body and then worked on the background. With my recent work I do have some ideas before starting the painting that I maybe sketch on the paper before and sometimes I just start applying more liquid paint with larger brush on the canvas and after its dry I usually if I still don`t have exact idea I can usually see a form that the liquid paint created that reminds me of something and then I go from there onward.
Sometimes I just have in mind something what I wanted to paint like for example I never painted horses before so I wanted to make a painting with horses on it. So I found this old Polish stamp with horses on that I decided to paint. I wanted to make this scenic background with this hills that reminded me of hills in Mexico so I was kind of time traveling painting it. It’s a completely different process now. I always work on multiple works because after I complete something on the canvas and I am not sure what to add next or stop I just leave it and go to the next work and with time watching at it I get new ideas what or how to continue the work. The hardest but not in most of the cases is to decide when the work is done. I try not to over done it thats all. Sometimes less is more I guess.
How do you approach color?
Evgen: I used to use a lot of very strong pop colors before, especially during my graffiti period. But I find it interesting how the interest for colors changes during my life. I’ve had these periods of what colors I prefer to use or I am attracted to. I had one period where I couldn’t use green at all and I almost hated it, and now for example I really like it. Recently I’m trying to use more soft and almost pastel colors. For me it´s a matter of experimentation with colors. And I think that it depends a lot on a current state of feeling at the moment of painting that drives me and decides on colors.
Last year the art market slowed down a bit. Can you tell me about how experienced that time?
Evgen: For me it slowed down a lot with my LA solo show at Bill Brady Gallery in 2023, and from that point on it’s went down a lot. At the beginning I was worrying a lot, but then with time, I just accepted it and moved forward. I took it as a sign to focus even more on my work and not what is happening on the market. When I accepted this, I finally understood that was a good thing for me.
For the first time after 3 years of constant deadlines and pressure of every work having to be great in order for it to be sold, I lost self confidence of trying new things, experiment, be curious and make mistakes. I was in such a need of that, because now I’ve finally started to feel creative again. Even though many people were shocked when they saw my new works had nothing to do with my older recognizable figures. I haven’t felt this great in a long time, going to the studio knowing that I have no idea what I’m going to paint that day. It feels like being a kid again, that can make mistakes and have fun while doing them. Obviously I hope that the market gets back on track in the near future and that I can keep doing what I love to do for a living, but until then I want to focus on my studio practice and deliver new works. Thats the only focus for now.
So with what we just talked about, what are you hoping to convey?
Evgen: It’s the first time that I’ve had a year with almost 0 shows or fairs at the moment, so my dream is after completing new series of works to get new opportunities to show with galleries and other institutions.
Ok Evgen, now to something totally different. In a parallel universe who would you be? and what would you be doing?
Evgen: I am a big sports fan when I am not doing art. So in my parallel universe I would be a professional golfer, since my favorite thing to do after art is golf.
Outside of art, I know you’re obsessed with playing golf in your free time. When did you start playing golf? And what is it about the sport that resonates with you?
Evgen: I grew up in a very sporty family and I’ve been playing sports since I was 3. I’ve been changing sports my entire life, from basketball, to snowboarding, tennis, kayaking and other sports, I ended up golfing. I actually started playing last January so its just a bit over a year now, but since I played it the first time, I became obsessed with it very quickly and dedicate every minute to it when I am not in the studio. It became an obsession after hitting the first good shot that releases a special feeling inside my brain that I haven’t experienced before with other sports. Many friends and people asked me “isn’t it a bit boring and for old people?” Where I always try to explain them, that until you try it, you don’t know how interesting the sport is. It’s the most technical and difficult sport I’ve ever tried and this is also why I got so into it.
Before talking about mental issues and anxiety that I’ve been suffering from, the biggest help of curing those problems for me was sports. It keeps my mind sharp and fresh, I spend a lot of time outdoors because of that, so I’ve been way less sick in the last few years since getting back into sports. It did so much for my body and soul that apart of that I am enjoying doing it so much it helps me a lot with being more present and fresh in the studio. Sport in general but in my case golf, is keeping this perfect balance in my life of being healthy mentally and physically, which simultaneously helps me in being very productive in the studio and at home.
Can you tell me a story about a time when a connection with someone had a big impact on you?
Evgen: I fell in love with Friedrich Kunath work since I discovered his work in Berlin when he had his solo show at Koenig Gallery around 5 years ago. I have a friend who knows him. I don’t even remember how it happened anymore, but I think she mentioned to him that I was a big fan of his work, and the day after he started following me on instagram, which to me was such an amazing feeling to be recognized by one of my favorite artists. Later on I had a situation in my career as an artist where I was looking for some advice from someone more experienced, so I thought of writing to Friedrich and asked him for advice even though we never meet before. He replied with giving me his phone number and telling me to call him, which I did. He was the sweetest person possible, he gave me lots of advice. It was a moment that I will never forget and appreciate forever. The best part of all of that was that we became good friends afterwards.
What qualities do you find most important in the people you choose to spend time with?
Evgen: To me the most important qualities about the people I spend time with is when they are honest with me and when they make me laugh. Those two I appreciate the most.
Anybody you look up to?
Evgen: Yes, Friedrich Kunath. Not just because he’s my favorite artist, but also because he’s such an amazing and inspiring person.
What motivates you?
Evgen: My girlfriend, our dogs, my family, my friends, golf, art, tennis, music, good food, the joy of life, traveling and striving to become better at everything I do in my life.
How would you describe a perfect day?
Evgen: Having a really good breakfast with my girlfriend, going to studio and make art, afterwards go play golf with my friends and finish the day having a nice dinner with my girlfriend and then watch a movie together and chill with our dogs.
Alright Evgen, I always ask these two questions at the end of an interview. The first is. What’s your favorite movie(s) and why?
Evgen: Goodfellas and Casino. Both Martin Scorsese movies, simply because I love his movies and I love movies about the mafia.
The second is. What song(s) are you currently listening to the most right now?
Evgen: I love to listen to NTS radio a lot, especially in the studio because I discover so much new music there. If I have to choose one song that I listen to a lot currently it’s: The Last Day (Moby, Skylar Grey)