Rin Cola, also know by her government name, (A)Rin Coppola, is an analog film revivalist & printmaker from Bumblefuck New England USA. From Redneckville, she ran as fast as she could to New York City to pursue her dream... a BFA from that school on the TV, Parsons the New School for Design. She curiously applied with a painting portfolio and didn't see the very quick lesson she was about to learn in that big apple... she hated to sew! While using her new found adapting skills that will become useful later in this story, she applied to a build-your-own major called Integrated Design, where she could use every medium without judgement. She graduated in 2016 and lived happily ever after working as a teaching artist with New York's finest young creatives at Studio in a School. She thought she would live and die in New York City...
Rin Coppola
And I really did... did think I was going to live and die there, happily.
Everyone says people who lived in NYC won't shut the fuck up about it, and it's true. Have you been there? It never leaves you, especially the dim orange lights illuminating you on your walk home from your shitty job to your even shittier apartment. It felt so dejected, and yet, I was home, finally! I was home. Well, if you caught my drift earlier, I didn't die there. But, my mom did tell me she had a tumor over a bowl of Ramen in the Lower East Side, under the same dim orange lights I had grown to trust.
The next four years were dedicated to grief. As a new orphan, I landed in any other city that would have me in the search for "home." Prague was the most notable, and London probably the least. Sorry, how could I not love a city who's only pickup line was, "you fat, ugly, American cunt!"
The DSM-5 acknowledges six (6?) months as the appropriate timeframe for grief. I saw sadness as my only relatability through art making, and yet again, I ran with it. My self discovery had been co-opted by loss, officially. It's documented.
I can't tell you what helped me see without the coffin-tinted glasses occasionally, but I am in a place where I can make art about my community and not just autobiography. I can focus on the stories I actually want to tell, ones of womanhood, and queerhood, hyperbole, realism...all in analog film. The whole process, from start to finish. I am home again. Maybe using analog is my lil way of never letting go of the past...
xoxo Rin Cola
Medium:
Lithographic Prints
an experiment in aromance.
Medium:
Experimental Photography
In collaboration with artist and circus-enthused Maddie Peterson, Hellmouth is our interpretation of Susan Meiselas' Carnival Strippers. We document Kandy (played by Maddie) on her shift at the Electric Arcade, while unpacking my friend's psychologically intimate relationship with the Fair.
Medium:
Photographic PrintsIn Collaboration with:
Warning: This work contains mature or explicit content.
Click to Enter
A continuation of the collaboration between Maddie Peterson and I. Here, Maddie gets method as she embraces other freak show motifs.
Medium:
Photographic Prints & Short FilmIn Collaboration with:
With the rapid rising and falling of drag popularity throughout the decades, we now find ourselves with drag performers achieving rockstardom. The Queen(s) heightens local queens to the same level as the reality TV stars, but with wistful realism.
Medium:
Photographic PrintsIn Collaboration with:
Warning: This work contains mature or explicit content.
Click to Enter
