We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michael Coppage. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michael below.

Michael, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Yes. When I graduated from undergrad (Memphis College of Art) I planned to go to the Peace Corps. While I completed the application process and waited for my travel dates I worked as a substitute teacher for the Chicago Public Schools. My departure date was pushed back multiple times and I decided to apply to graduate school. Eventually I was accepted to PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) and gave up my interest in the Peace Corps. After graduating, I moved to Ohio where I would begin my international travels for the next 10 years. It was important that I get perspective and clarity about what type of works I would like to make. During this time, I had one or two group shows a year to stay current and active but I was not satisfied with the work. 40 countries later, I found the inspiration, motivation and perspective I needed to begin what is now a pretty robust practice of interdisciplinary works and collaborations. I’m not sure the quality of my work would hold up if I started 10 years ago but I do often daydream where I might be if I had started back then.

Michael, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In addition to being an emerging artist, I also have to navigate the stigma that comes with being a “local artist”. I actually infiltrated the local art scene by manipulating the largest news publication in the city into publishing an article about me receiving hate mail related to my work from white nationalists. After the article was conceived and the manipulation was executed the gallery director for one of the most prestigious galleries in town reached out to me. This was after being rejected for an exhibition proposal a year prior. After I told them they had been manipulated, I was asked to come and look at the space and talk about what I might like to exhibit in the space. My work takes a dialectical behavioral approach to addressing culturally normalized racial experiences that perpetuate historical trauma in contemporary America. Using an evidenced-based, Dialectical Behavioral Therapeutic model (DBT), I create paint, sculptural and lens-based projects that explore negative archetypes and stark racial disparities still operating in the language and psychology of contemporary American culture. I audit contemporary language to create counter narratives, new definitions and safe spaces for conversations that lead to increased empathy, understanding, insight, public engagement and community impact. Simultaneously, my work gives an equitable share of the Black trauma experience to our white counterparts so that they can share the responsibility of doing the work that most of us have been doing alone for so long. Equity, Inclusion and Diversity conversations are a ubiquitous part of the American experience and I use my work to not only access white spaces but to pull my white counterparts into Black spaces. My images are generalized to provoke the viewer to project their own thoughts, feelings and bias onto the work creating the impetus for discussion.
What sets me apart is my use of a therapeutic (DBT) intervention to engage everyday “hamburger and hotdog people”. I believe racism is a mental health disorder. I worked in mental health during my 10 years of travel and became proficient at using art and a therapeutic engagement tool to help adults and children on psychiatric units, hospitals and in community settings.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The goal of my entire practice at this point is to audit current language for what I perceive as harmful language and present the case to the public in an effort to promote discourse and facilitate transformational cultural shifts in language and how we use it. Helping to make people aware of how they might be harming someone while using racially loaded, negatively connoted language is one of the imperatives of my practice. Inclusion in the art historical canon is ultimately the long term goal of my practice.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There was a time when I was a younger man where I attempted to have conversations about the topics of my work that never quite struck a chord. I decided people were not interested in conversations or the realities of race and how it negatively impacted my lived experience so I moved on to climate, mental health etc. During the pivot, I found myself internalizing issues that did not belong to me. I pushed them down and carried them for my entire adult life. I became sick and used my mental health training to figure out the most effective path towards unburdening myself. I had to unlearn the practice of internalizing racial experiences and finding my voice so I could purge all of the unhealthy thoughts and experiences into work that encapsulated my fear, anger and concern and experiences. I had to learn my thoughts and experiences were valid and deserved an audience. I came back to the topic of race and now I primarily work at the intersection of language and race. Specifically, how language impacts race.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MichaelCoppageArt.com
• Instagram: @michael_coppage
• Facebook: Michael Coppage
• Linkedin: Michael Coppage
• Yelp: Michael C.

Image Credits
Courtesy of the Artist.