January 22, 2015 by Holland Cotter.

My painting “We Can’t Breathe” was one of the few artwork’s—out of 700—from Smack Mellon’s Respond show that received mention in the article.

In 2015, I was one of around 700 artists shown at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, NY. The show, “Respond”, was launched shortly after the police murder of African-American Eric Garner. My painting, “We Can’t Breathe” was one of the ten artworks from the show to receive mention in the NYTs cover review of the show in the arts section.

16×20 oil on canvas. Sandra Koponen 2014

In 2015 I did a series oil portraits, “Officials of Torture” of those in President G.W. Bush’s administration who were instrumental in legitimizing, devising, and implementing the CIA’s torture program at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and black sites around the world. In 2021, I had a show of these paintings at Time & Space Limited in Hudson, NY. Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg wrote a review of my show that was published in the syndicated paper, The Times Union, out of Albany, NY.

Oil on Canvas. S. Koponen 2015

One from the series.

One of 17 oil portraits in my Officials of Torture show at Time and Space Limited in Hudson, NY, October 2021. S. Koponen 2015