Mindy Kober

Mindy Kober is a contemporary pop artist living in Los Angeles, and her preferred medium is gouache on paper. Her work explores the themes of reconstructed memories, societal codes, and the natural world, and evokes an illustrative charm typically found in storybooks. She uses the idea of storytelling in her work to piece together forgotten traditions and half learned folklore, reassembled and retold by the universe itself. You can find her on IG @kobermindy and on her artist website at www.mindykober.com.

Artist’s Statement

I use pop culture references from my childhood and past to examine our collective visual culture. These paintings explore the familiar and familial patterns of Pyrex dishware which were a staple in my childhood home. Research revealed that these cheerful mid-century botanical prints were rooted in Slavic pagan folk imagery.  It was as if my own Slavic roots had retained enough genetic memory to point me towards the Pyrex, to point towards myself. The vases are an archaic technology curating the wild nature of the blossoms.  In my paintings, the blossoms shown are Pyrex designs, which are watered down versions of the natural beauty they seek to capture.

 The Friendship Sampler is emblematic of the historic practice of making samplers, which were a sort of “specimen of achievement”, demonstrating a woman’s proof of existence, worth, and identity. Today, the surviving samplers are considered historical documents. They are a connection to past ancestors that elucidate a personality in a dimension beyond a photograph. I continue this tradition with my painting, using my own personal iconography.