A conversation with Viviane de Kosinsky, winner of the Art League’s 2023 Landscape Exhibit Best in Show Award 

Brown Payne for The Art League

Artist Viviane de Kosinsky won  the Art League’s Best in Show award for the June 2023 Landscape Exhibit. In her piece “Untitled (Matterhorn),” de Kosinsky’s drawing of the Matterhorn peak in Switzerland illustrates the mountainous landscape with a lush palette of colored pencil. Depicting a blissful moment of interaction between the natural landscape and architecture, de Kosinsky captures the atmosphere of a cloudless alpine day. In the foreground, the light of sunrise pours over Swiss chalets, creating long shadows that stretch across the hillside road. In the background, the snowy, jagged summit of the four-faced mountain rises over the Swiss Alps. In this article, the artist discusses her inspiration and processes in creating beautiful works like this award winning piece.  

The Art League: Throughout your body of work, there are scenes from around the world–France, Italy, England–to name a few. Am I correct to assume that your travels have greatly influenced your work? 

Viviane de Kosinsky: “Yes, my own travels are the inspiration for most of my work, and I travel frequently to visit family, friends and favorite places. My drawing of the Matterhorn is based on a long hike in 2021 down a nearby mountainside and seeing the iconic mountain dominating the landscape on a cloudless day.  I was born in Geneva and still have family and friends in Switzerland.  I obtained my Master’s Degree in Printmaking in Florence, and also worked in Italy and London for a number of years.  I learned darkroom photography in Florence and have always used a camera as my memory.  It is not just landscapes nor cityscapes that I wish to capture, but the local atmosphere in daily scenes. During the restrictive Covid years I brought out my pens and pencils for my ‘armchair travel.’”

TAL: What overall atmosphere do you seek out for your subjects? Do you prefer to capture certain times of day, or certain seasons? 

de Kosinsky: “I have always been attentive to mornings and sunsets, the times of day when the light changes compared to full-on daylight, especially in locations famous for light such as the south of France or, just this April, up in Skagen, at the northernmost tip of Denmark, these all tending to be places which have historically attracted artist colonies for the same reason. For indoor scenes, my black and white  photography has been the most helpful reference, particularly for my etchings.”

TAL: A lot of your previous work is focused in printmaking or watercolor. Currently, what is your favorite medium to work with? 

de Kosinsky: “It may come as a surprise to most of my print collectors that I have always done so much drawing as well.  My art career began in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design.  Having a studio at The Torpedo Factory obliged me to promote just one medium, and naturally that was my full etching workshop, minus the acid baths which I had at home.  The length of time it takes to carefully draw on metal etching plates, in reverse to the final planned image, demands patience and possibly obsession with line work compared to the freedom of drawing on paper. Like a jazz musician first learning classical piano, drawing and the tremendous power of line is the foundation for many printmakers. The even bigger surprise for my followers might be that my favorite medium right now is oil painting, but always with several ongoing drawing projects.”

TAL: What do you enjoy about working with colored pencils? Do you draw while on location or from photographs?

de Kosinsky: “I enjoy the building up of an image with colored pencils and the role which color immediately plays from the beginning.  Working on a picture is like opening a window, so many nuances available, easy to interrupt and change direction, and sometimes portable.  I use Caran d’Ache colored pencils, an excellent Swiss product, which come in a selection of varying hardness, water solubility, and size. I believe the largest assortment on the market contains 180 pencils. I will do rough sketches on location or in a travel journal, but the final illustration—destined to be a unique piece, unlike multiple prints in an edition—might take weeks in my studio, therefore photographs are an essential reference as well.”

TAL: Can you let us know some artists who inspire your work? 

de Kosinsky: “There are so many artists whom I admire and study—certainly Bonnard, Seurat and Signac for color, then Ingres, Redon, David Hockney, Ferdinand Hodler and the early Renaissance masters for line, too many to mention. So often sculptors produce amazing drawings, and great painters have so few.”