PANEL DISCUSSION Burton Kopelow: Myth in the Making

Myth in the Making provides a succinct, retrospective view of Kopelow’s life as an artist, revealing a man deeply tuned to universal spiritual archetypes, Theosophy, Jung, Campbell, Tibetan thangka paintings, and Zen. Kopelow’s painting career spanned six decades of exploration, expression and invention. His bold use of color, evocative imagery and personal mythology are strongly felt in all of his art.

Burton Kopelow produced over 3,000 pieces of art in his lifetime. He was an artist’s artist, dedicated so fully to his craft, so fully immersed in the potential of art and the ongoing creation story that binds us all, that his peers would refer to him as “the guardian of the threshold.” Perhaps it was this stewardship, this devotional practice, that dissuaded Kopelow from self-promotion: Burton’s mind, body and soul were too busy painting.

The process of creating art, he would say, is like the alchemists trying to produce gold from lead. His practice was dedicated to transcribing this transformation of the self into a higher level of being. In his words:

“The world is made of archetypes and has the same images running through all kinds of cultures. Regardless of the kind of culture it is you will find the same motifs appearing and that unites everybody into one bag, so to speak, that we're all related and that appeals to me.” For Kopelow, life is not only predicated by our collected and collective mythology — it is the ongoing creation of these mythologies.

Regular Exhibiting Hours: Tuesday-Friday 12:00-6:00pm
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NANCY BLUMSTEIN curator, is the archivist and manager of Burton Kopelow’s work. In that capacity, she has mounted, or assisted in mounting, five shows, including "Burton Kopelow: Circling the Square" at The Philosophical Research Society, curated by David Orr. She is also the author of the monograph Burton Kopelow, Paths of Discovery. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, she worked in theatre, film, and television production for many years, before changing directions to work in administration at UCLA, which gave her more time to concentrate on writing, photography, and on Kopelow’s work. She is now happy to be able to concentrate full time on these efforts.
JOHN BUCHER is a mythologist and story expert who has been featured on the BBC, the History Channel, in the LA Times, and on numerous other international
outlets . He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a writer, podcaster, storyteller, and speaker. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation. He has served as a producer, consultant, and writer for numerous film, television, and Virtual Reality projects. He is the author of six books including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times Best Selling authors, YouTube influencers, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, magicians, and cast members from Saturday Night Live. He holds a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology and has spoken on 6 continents about using the power of story and myth to reframe how individuals, organizations, cultures, and nations believe and behave.
DAVID ORR is a visual artist based in California. His work has been shown extensively in the United States and internationally in shows juried by representatives from the de Young Museum, theInternational Center for Photography, the Lucie Awards, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The New York Times, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. His work is in public collections among such artists as Ansel Adams, John Baldessari, Ruth Asawa,Jim Dine, David Hockney, The Brothers Quay, Edward Weston, and Joel-Peter Witkin. David is the founder of the Hansell Gallery and the contemporary arts program at PRS. He is a member of The Long Now Foundation.

Burton Kopelow (1924-2015) was a Brooklyn-born, self- taught artist and early resident of the Downtown LA Loft scene in the 1980s. He discovered his artistic calling and dedication to color when, as a teen, a shade of ultramarine blue sang to him from a Titian painting while wandering New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kopelow received a Purple Heart after being wounded in World War II and thereafter studied literature and philosophy at NYU under the GI Bill. His interest in philosophy expanded upon moving to Los Angeles and frequenting institutions like the Philosophical Research Society, where he encountered metaphysics and Theosophy’s influence on early 20th century art.

Kopelow’s work, which numbers over 3,000 pieces, draws from multiple chapters of his colorful, bohemian life in the US and Mexico and tells the story of an artist who explored and invented radically different styles over his lifetime. His catalogue ranges from abstract, mystical mandalas reflecting his interest in Jung, alchemy, consciousness, and personal transformation, to figurative works with mythological and Dionysian themes.

Kopelow worked in relative obscurity until 2014, just one year before his passing, when his first solo show at LA Artcore’s Brewery Annex launched to much fanfare and record attendance. Even despite limited mobility in later years, he continued painting daily, driven by a never- ending pursuit to glean deeper knowledge through artistic practice. Kopelow was greatly admired by his peers as an “artist’s artist,” who had an intense work ethic, ignored artworld trends, and painted for the sheer joy of it.

Inspired greatly by Carl Jung, Kopelow’s work is a mythology unto itself. And here, in “Myth in the Making,” the audience is invited to take part in the ongoing creation story of an artist we should all be getting to know.

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