Cody Kamrowski

I was born in Albuquerque in 1995, and I’ve lived here ever since. As a kid, the only toys I ever wanted were plastic model kits of tanks, airplanes, and robots, but all my friends at school were playing video games. Both hobbies can get expensive. Despite the privilege of having great parents in a steady middle class home, as a jobless child with no regular source of income aside from birthday and holiday gifts, I was left with a choice: models or videogames. I chose games. But the urge to construct things never left, so I eventually started designing and building models from paper and glue based on videogame screenshots. I sketched a lot then too, and in high school, my art teacher David Welch introduced me to figure drawing.

I graduated from the University of New Mexico with a non-art degree and was working in a non-art field when the COVID 19 pandemic hit. Working from home, the inescapable urge to create things returned. As a member of the internet generation, I defaulted to my computer to find resources about drawing and painting. Web results turned up PDFs of drawing manuals, hundreds of hours of videos on YouTube, and online workshops from artists and instructors whose knowledge would otherwise be confined to the classroom. A couple years later, I started teaching my own workshops and showing my work locally, which I still do now. I've won an award from the Portrait Society of America and from the Hampstead Art Society in the UK, but I'd prefer that the work speak for itself.

I’m interested in the theatricality of domestic life where the actors are ordinary subjects in every-day settings. In today's digitally stimulating world, we often forget to observe the real people, places, and activities around us. There's so much nuance in the shapes, colors, forms, and narratives hiding in plain view among the stuff – and people – we surround ourselves with. Right now, I'm interested in scenes that artificial intelligence can't (yet) capture: anecdotes in medias res. As much as I value technique and craftsmanship in my work, I try to privilege the feeling of humanity with all of its baggage and imperfection. Acute observation is a staple in my imagery, but I also understand the power of suggestion. In my work you'll find moments of great detail and moments of chaotic abstraction. And there’s always a story unfolding outside of the canvas.

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