1998

"long trip someplace" was the "single," if you will, off the "Travels" album, if you will...again, please. It was featured on the program for the dual exhibition by Richard Waswo and Mister Koppa (that's me) at the Charles Allis Museum in Milwaukee in January of 1999 (which graciously received a complimenting review).
I gave it to my mom.

Michael Koppa grew up several blocks from a small air field in Milwaukee. He remembers packing a lunch for a field trip to go watch the planes take off and land with his brother. Running a grocery store on Milwaukee's East Side, his adult life has revolved around soup can displays, specials of the week, and a collage of humanity waiting for someone to them what they want to buy. The products whose soothing familiarity subconsciously comfort us all have fascinated Mike and stimulated countless manifestations of sales pitch satire. His St. Francis studio space used to be the back room of a grocery store, and as the planes from Mitchell Field thunder overhead, Mike can be found meticulously assembling his creations. A lifetime spent scrutinizing familiar surroundings honed his perspective, and thousands of hours facing the shelves have bestowed upon Mike the gift of recognizing why some things look better than others.

The objects and images that make up Mike's work are symbiotic, exquisitely comfortable where they lie. Text books, printing press parts, and National Geographic magazines are the artifiacts from his existence forged into expertly twisted snapshots of the familiar - the mundane made grotesque. The planes that soar through "and when a train goes by" glided first across a mind's eye that witnesses the disturbed side of the everyday and offers the rest of us a peek. Mike's collages are pop-art-Scientific American-style. Witty and captivating, each piece is masterfully framed mind-candy that tugs at your brain with the question:

What does it all mean?

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