Studio Visit & Interview with Rebecca Kaufman
By John Vochatzer
Photography By Brandon Joseph Baker
Walking into Rebecca Kaufman’s studio is like stepping into the intricate workings of a playful yet meticulously organized mind. Tucked away in a shared space with fellow artists in West Oakland, her side of the studio brims with the signature Op Art-inspired paintings, illustrations, and textile pieces she’s become known for throughout the Bay Area. Each piece is mind blowing in its detail, drawing the viewer in with optical illusions and mesmerizing patterns. It’s here, in this vibrant, light-filled workspace, that Rebecca dedicatedly “employs” herself in crafting these intricate and immersive creations.
During my visit, Rebecca generously shared insights into her creative process, the wide array of inspirations that fuel her work, and the stories behind her ever-evolving body of art. Already an admirer of her work, I left with a deepened appreciation—not just for the technical mastery of her pieces but for the ethos and passion that drive her practice. Understanding the person behind the work offered new dimensions to her art, making it feel even more radiant and alive.
Rebecca’s participation in our upcoming group show, Trance & Emblem, marks her second exhibit with us this year, and her work is a natural fit for the theme. The hypnotic, engrossing qualities of her pieces align seamlessly with the trance-like atmosphere we’re trying to cultivate for the show. Her elaborate designs and geometric patterns invite viewers to immerse themselves in the visceral experience of viewing art, making each encounter with her work a journey into the layered complexities and visual rhythms that define the essence of this collection of work.
Interview
Hey Rebecca! Thanks so much for inviting us to your Oakland studio. It’s a really cool space, and we loved getting a glimpse into your creative process. Could you walk us through what a typical day in the studio looks like for you?
Thanks so much for asking me to do this, John! It was so nice having you visit my studio. Typically, I get to the studio and take some time just being in the space, straightening up, clearing my head, and staring at whatever it is I’m working on. I spend a lot of time with my Color-Aid set planning my next moves before diving into whatever phase I’m in at the moment. My paintings have a lot of layers and my work overall is really process-oriented so I work on several pieces at once while I think about what to do next. This keeps my brain and my hands busy so I’m unable to overthink and so I never have to wait for paint to dry. When I finish working in the studio for the day (or evening) I take pictures of where I stopped, clean up, and kind of zone out on what I’ve just done. I think these periods of just staring at the work are really important in my process. It gives me time to digest and process.
You earned your BFA at The University of Tennessee and your MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute. Could you share a bit about your experience as an art student and how it has shaped you into the artist you are today?
I went to art school straight out of high school because someone told me, “You better choose a path you love because you’re going to be doing it for the rest of your life.” While I don’t totally buy that sentiment anymore, this helped me a lot because I already knew that making art made me happier than anything else. Going to art school isn’t for everyone, but I really thrived with the structure, support, and built-in community. It was a place where I could finally see real, living artists making a life I wanted to have one day. It also gave me the green light to fall flat on my face again and again while growing my knowledge of art history and critical theory and honing my intuition and trust in myself. This was so key to continuing to make art after school. I found I really needed to continue to utilize that memorized structure to take me to a place where I could develop my own style and contextualize myself in the larger history of art.
There’s a distinct meticulousness and repetition in your work that feels almost signature to your style. You’ve mentioned that you enjoy this aspect of the creative process, likening it to “employing yourself.” Could you delve deeper into what this means for you?
Okay, so full disclosure - I lifted the concept of “employing myself” from my partner who uses this self-coaching tactic in his own art practice to get through situations with no clear end in sight. It’s like a trick to simulate the results of having faith even when you don’t feel like whatever you’re doing is going to work out. He pointed out this similarity in my practice and I think about it all the time now. In my life, I have a tendency to overthink, overanalyze, and generally spin out with whatever’s floating around in my brain, but the work I make affords me the opportunity to adopt a ritual and meditative series of moves to quiet those tendencies. And so, when I plan a painting, I do what Sol LeWitt did with his wall drawings. I make a list of tasks for myself, from start to finish, and I basically employ myself to carry them out. What I find, however, is when I create this structure for myself and trick myself into getting out of my own way, I paradoxically afford myself the freedom to break my own rules, to be a bad employee, and to allow my gut to take the painting somewhere unexpected. I have issues with authority figures, even when I make myself the authority figure.
You’ve mentioned that one of your favorite aspects of viewing art is the process of reverse engineering how pieces are made. Where does this curiosity come from, and how does it influence your own art practice?
I’m so glad you brought this up. One of my earliest memories of seeing art was walking into one of Red Grooms’ life-size New York MTA bus sculptures at the local art museum when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I remember asking so many questions about how it was made and feeling so excited about the idea of being INSIDE a work of art. I also spent a lot of time as a kid tripping out over those magic eye books and staring at early computer generated optical illusion games during breaks from playing Oregon Trail in computer class. When I got to art school and we’d spend hours looking at each other's work in critique, I realized this curiosity was what excited me so much about art and in turn making it. I think what makes a work of art interesting for me, what holds me hostage looking at it, is that “WHAT is going on here?” factor. I’m sure most painters can pretty easily decode my work, but I love a good puzzle and even more than that, I love being tricked into seeing something that’s not actually there which is why I am so drawn to optical illusions.
You also spoke about experiencing art as an “emotional experience” and your desire to evoke emotion through your work. Can you share a time (or times) when viewing art profoundly moved you in this way?
Ultimately, any powerful reaction to a work of art is an emotional experience and when a work of art makes me furious or confused or so irritated that I can’t stop thinking about it for days after seeing it, that is a successful work of art. So in my own work I hope the viewer can experience some kind of powerful, intangible response even if that is feeling their eyes cross or getting dizzy or seasick or angry. I know my paintings can be overbearing, but I find any response flattering because it means someone spent enough time to process it to allow an emotion to come to the surface. Whether or not someone actually enjoys my work is irrelevant to me as long as they feel something.
A great example of this is Barfly, the 1987 film based on the life of Charles Bukowski. I hated it. It was devastating and frustrating and it honestly made me really angry. It was so out of control it seriously challenged what I held true for myself. Sure, parts of it were pretty funny, but the entire time we were watching it my body was all closed up and my arms were crossed and I was all tense and I did not want to discuss it with my partner when it ended. Over the next several weeks, however, I thought about the film a lot and I grew to respect it. That anger kept working on me and it made me reevaluate what I originally held true. That is good art.
How would you describe the role of color and the relationships between colors in your work?
I’m enthralled with balance, and color is my all-time favorite vehicle for exploring balance. I spend a lot of time with my eyes open thinking about color relationships in my everyday life. In the studio, I love the challenge of pairing colors together in a way that creates a third that’s not actually there. Like when I can make a painting of entirely warm colors, but somehow from a certain angle this bright blue appears. I honestly don’t always know how it happens, so I’m constantly surprising myself playing with color. I find it so captivating. One of my professors at SFAI used to say that painting was simply light. We have this unique opportunity when dealing with color to make work that both absorbs and reflects light, and the fact that every body sees and processes color uniquely is really exciting for me.
You’ve referenced the Op Art movement of the 1960s a few times when discussing your work. What draws you to Op Art, and how do you see its influence reflected in what you create?
I’ve always felt funny about being an abstract painter. Abstraction can sometimes feel elitist and inaccessible for people who don’t know much about the history of art. Op Art, however, is highly accessible. It was dismissed by art critics in the 1960s as decorative, kitsch and trivial - much like traditional women’s work. I think Clement Greenberg likened it to blacklight posters for rock bands. And that's what I love most about Op art! It’s not just for stuffy art critics. It’s for every body with the capacity to see and process light. It’s just playing our instruments.
Op art is altogether playful and powerful, complex and empty. It’s being taken from the moment and in the moment simultaneously. This dichotomy is exciting to me and serves as a mirror for the dissonance of being alone in my studio making art and the necessity of participating in the commodification of art on social media and in the broader “art world”. Ultimately, you really can’t commodify the act of looking - it just happens. I want to champion the real act of looking - to create a direct experience with the viewer.
One aspect of your work that stands out to me is the presence of “disruptions”—those often deliberate imperfections that reveal the hand of the artist in pieces that otherwise appear machine-perfect. Can you elaborate on the significance of these disruptions in your art?
In the first wave of Op Art, painters like Bridget Riley, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Julian Stanczak were extremely exacting with their work. Following the tradition of minimalism and in opposition to the abstract expressionists of the 1950s, they sought to obliterate any evidence of the human hand. And so, in my opinion, the function of optical painting at this moment in the context of technology, is simultaneously high and low tech. In viewing optical painting, your brain is the computer. You are the tech. The presence of undulations, bleeds, scratching and jumping lines in my work indicate evidence of the human hand. At a time when we don’t know if we’re looking at an AI generated work of art or something made by a human being, I think this is pretty important.
We both connected on this idea of being “recovering perfectionists,” as you put it. How has this journey been for you, and do you have any advice for others on a similar path?
I love that we could connect over this, John. I do see this in your work, but I also see so much care and humor and story-telling and healing in your drawings especially. I think repetitive mark-making and orderly patterns in drawing and painting can really help with feeling like you need to be just so in the rest of life. It’s a great container for it! I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like I wasn’t doing enough or I wasn’t good enough and perfectionism was a convenient coping mechanism I picked up to feel a sense of safety and cling to the hope that everything would be okay if I could just be perfect. I know now that I don’t have to be perfect, and it’s way more fun to allow myself to loosen up and play more in my art practice. “Perfect is the enemy of good”, as they say, and perfectionism can be so paralyzing. I still struggle with it. This is another reason I allow for those moments of disruption in my otherwise orderly paintings. I enjoy that these disturbances don’t actually affect the visual phenomena from a distance and when you’re up close you get to see these little moments of failure. In a way, these moments remind me I’m allowed to fail. I’m only human. As for advice for others on a similar path, the more I learn the less I know, but I do know I feel a whole lot better when I loosen my grip and give myself permission to play.
An artist and professor visiting your studio in grad school once asked if you even “enjoyed” creating the work you do, and it’s a question that’s stuck with you ever since. To the best of your abilities, how would you answer that question today?
Initially I was offended by this, but I’ve had enough time to sit with it to realize that it is a great question. I do “enjoy” making this work, but it’s really more about fulfillment than joy. I don’t spend every second enjoying the process. I agonize over mixing the right color or troubleshooting or taking risks or exploring new mediums. Even if you enjoy playing tennis, for instance, it likely involves a lot of repetitive and challenging practice before you experience those moments of joy when you’re playing with an opponent. I do enjoy this way of working even when it’s difficult because I find it comforting. It’s definitely not for everyone and that’s okay. It’s equal parts predictable and totally surprising. While I can feel like I’ve planned everything just so, most of the time I have no idea how a painting is going to look until it’s completely finished. I love that dichotomy and how similar it is to the way I move through life. I’m both strategic and spontaneous!
