Meet Tina Scepanovic | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tina Scepanovic and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tina, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Giving back is an important part of the work I do as an artist. Each year, I donate the proceeds from select pieces to causes in my community that resonate with me. I always ask my collectors for their input on charities as well, and the donation becomes a fun collaboration between us. This past April, I exhibited my art with Art On The Ave NYC, a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing neighborhoods through the placement of art in vacant storefronts. I created a sculptural wall relief, Gobstoppers No. 26, specifically for this show. The textures and colors pay homage to our beloved concrete jungle, and I knew that whoever loved the piece would also love New York City. Through its sale, we raised over $5,000 for three New York-centered causes: 1) Heart Of Dinner, which delivers home cooked meals to Asian American elderly in NYC, 2) Equity Advocates, which helps nonprofits tackle underlying causes of food inequity through policy and systems change, and 3) back to Art On The Ave.

I also try to donate my creative skills where I can. Earlier this year, I lended my artistic direction to the Isabel O’Neil Studio in NYC, a non-profit dedicated to the art of the painted finish. When I heard that they were revamping their website, I volunteered to direct a photoshoot to generate some fresh content. While I am neither a professional photographer nor content creator, I had picked up some artistic direction skills through past collaborations. Through trial, error, and a lot of love, we conducted a successful photoshoot and the new website looks fantastic.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
When people hear that I am an artist, their first question is usually, “What kind of art do you do?” or “What medium?” This always stumps me because my practice is tough to define. My work is generally sculptural in nature and finished using historical painted finishes, but I don’t consider myself a sculptor nor a painter. I like to isolate elements or objects I find visually striking and play with repetition, recombining, or novel contexts to develop a story.

My painted finishes are rooted in techniques that date back to the Renaissance, and are incredibly time and labor intensive. There really are no shortcuts in the work that I do, and I take great pride in each step of the process. Sometimes I transform a raw piece of wood using up to 50 manipulations of paint, sanding, sealing, lacquering, and polishing. My goal is never to finish as fast as I can. I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right.

For the past two years, I have been focused on my Gobstoppers series which was born out of a desire to make sense of time during the pandemic lockdown. The isolation left us feeling unmoored, and the day to day repetition led to a blurring of time. I personally lost track of the days of the week. I chose to affix spheres, a fundamental form in the story of geometric creation, to panels as an attempt to track time in the absence of an external reference. The pieces in the series are abstractions of calendars, but ones in which the creator has grossly miscalculated. None of them resemble any sense of time as we understand it. But that’s why it is humorous. They are mistakes that have been immortalized, and I hope that conveys a sense of optimism.⁠
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My current project involves using found and vintage glass to explore domestic life. This collection is really about revealing and exposing, and bringing to light the difficult and funny facts about our most intimate relationships. ⁠I’ve chosen glass to express these themes because it just seems like a really honest material. It is transparent, reflective, stable, yet fragile. The aspect of the glass being found is also significant. In the same way that we don’t choose family, I’m determined to create something exquisite with these imperfect odds and ends without too much alteration.⁠

The biggest challenge I’ve faced in my practice is finding that balance between giving the market what it wants and forging ahead in my own creative journey. On one hand, artists have bills to pay too and we need to think of ourselves as businesses in order to financially sustain our lives and studios. On the other, artists do not like chasing trends and doing the same thing over and over again. I was lucky to have experienced a bit of commercial success early in my career. As I see copies of my work flood the market, sometimes I feel a tinge of remorse for not licensing out my designs, automating my process, and scaling up. But I know myself. Right now I’m focused on storytelling, and I’m not quite ready to have my story diluted in the context of the mass market. There may be a time in the future when I push my art commercially, but it has to be on my terms and executed in a way that feels truly connected with my values.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
My favorite place to go on the weekends is Litchfield County, Connecticut. If my friends were visiting, I’d plan a retreat full of art, food, antiques, and nature in the area.

EATS
The Smithy Market, New Preston, CT
Ore Hill & Swyft in Kent, CT
Falls Village Inn, Falls Village, CT

ART
Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, CT
Standard Space, Sharon, CT
Furnace Art On Paper Archive, Falls Village, CT
Washington Art Association, Washington Depot, CT
Dumais Made, Bantam, CT

ANTIQUES
RT Facts, Kent CT
Montage Antiques, Millerton, NY
Great Barrington Antiques Center, MA
Housatonic Trading Company, Bantam, CT

NATURE
Kent Falls State Park, Kent, CT
Lake Waramaug State Park, Warren, CT
Falls Village Flower Farm, Falls Village, CT
Deans Ravine, Falls Village, CT
Hike a part of the Appalachian Trail!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to give a shoutout Paddy Johnson for the work she is doing with VVrkshop, a community that coaches artists to get shows, grants, and residencies. I didn’t go to art school myself, but my friends who did report that they pretty much learned nothing practical about being an artist in real life. There are very few resources for artists out there. Paddy truly demystifies the art world and helps breaks the career path down into approachable and digestible chunks. I always look forward to seeing VVrkshop’s posts on social media – not only are they hilarious but they often offer just the encouragement I need to push through the many moments of self-doubt.

Website: https://www.tinascepanovic.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinascepanovic/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-scepanovic-bab4352/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TinaScepanovicStudio

Image Credits
Maria Baranova Steve Selman Theo Coulombe