Kopita ArtWall Exhibit
In February and March, the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village (CT) will host “Read Between the Lines,” an exhibition of artworks by Jon Kopita, focusing on the playfulness of language, syntax, meaning, graphics, and identity. These framed drawings utilize lined cursive writing paper and document the artist’s meditative thoughts, observations, and obsessions. Resembling rhythmic chants or musical scores, the works are often imbued with subtle variations in spelling and meaning that lead to gentle resolutions and enlightened understanding. Mr. Kopita said, “While a picture might be worth a thousand words, I believe a thousand words are worth a picture. As a teacher, words really matter to me. My practice of making art started with trying to fit my very best longhand between the lines, utilizing lined paper that teachers used for decades to teach their students how to write cursive.”
Included in the exhibition is “Untitled: Pandemic,” a grouping of 25 pieces completed during the first 150 days of the 2020 lockdown. Being shown for the first time, they mark the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
A reception for Jon Kopita will take place on Saturday, February 22, from 4PM to 6PM. In conjunction with the exhibition, Jon will also give an art talk on Thursday, February 27, from 5:30PM to 7PM. The exhibition will be on display from February 14 through March 21, 2025. All events are free and open to the public.
Born in Ohio, Jon Kopita graduated from Cornell University with a degree in chemistry and a concentration in physics and art history. For more than 30 years he has tutored and counseled middle school, high school, and college students and has coached young adults embarking on their career paths. In the early 1990s Jon’s extensive travels found him collecting all sorts of writing pads, tablets and bound blank journals, especially from Eastern Europe. He began to write miscellaneous thoughts over and over “in the spirit of old-school teachers of my childhood, punishing students by making them write the same sentence over and over. However, for me, the experience of repetitive writing became meditative and cathartic, more of an exorcism of thoughts rather than something either punitive or tedious. I often present my drawings in groupings or grids, much like tiles, highlighting both similarities, differences, and patterns in the written form of words, revealing in turn the essence of a particular theme. I love the subtle differences in my writing that appear within a single page or between two or more pages juxtaposed.”
In 2012, Jon Kopita and his husband, Olaf, bought a seasonal fishing cabin on the Housatonic River in Falls Village that they knocked down in 2016 to build a year-round home. After the 2020 pandemic they realized their dream of spending most of their time in the NW Corner.
David M. Hunt Library
63 Main Street
Falls Village, CT 06031
