An Artist You Should Know: Jeff Sypherd
Photography by Chloe Flaherty.
New York City-based painter and tattoo artist Jeff Sypherd is an artist you should know.
Why? Because like the de Koonings and Jacob Lawrence’s and Franz Kline’s of history, Jeff is pulling from many things and combining them with aspects of edge and contemporary counterculture to pay homage to and build upon the characteristics of American abstract impressionist classics, creating something new and beautifully skewed. His pieces cut through the bourgeois and land on something comfortably known but never boring, and you don’t want to be late to the party on that.
How long have you been painting?
It’s hard to say. I’ve been drawing and into art since I was a kid. I remember as far back as eight years old, I wanted to be Van Gogh so bad. Painting, I guess I would say I didn’t have a proper studio practice until I moved to New York City in 2018. I was going to community college and looking to go to art school, but I left when I got into tattooing, and that was when I was nineteen.
What is the thing that has changed most since you’ve gotten a real studio practice?
I guess, the first thing that comes to mind is that I think at that time, I was still living pretty loose. I cleaned up my act in 2020, so I feel like things have been a little bit more dialed since then. Things have been a little more intentional, more disciplined. I guess not always, but nearly always, at least since I’ve started tattooing, I’ve been into the same kind of imagery, and for better or worse, I’ve aimed to merge these forms of fine art and tattooing, and I think that I’ve gotten much better at that since moving the tattoo practice into my painting studio a few years ago.
Does one compliment the other a bit more in one direction or another?
Tattooing definitely is the backbone. When I tattoo, I do eagles and skulls or whatever, and when I paint, I dream up more of these abstract paintings, but I never land there, it’s always somewhere in between but within both.
Just glancing around, I see a few references within your work that I’d like to ask you about. I see a lot of likeness to works from the Harlem Renaissance all the way to the post-War era.
Oh, yeah, for sure. I pull a lot from the New York school of abstract impressionists. A lot of Philip Guston and de Kooning. I was always painting in my parents’ garage, in my kitchen, but then I met Jake Coulter who is like a mentor to me, and he invited me to his studio and I was like, ‘oh shit, this is the real deal, I want a studio, too!’ But he said something that day about de Kooning. He was talking about using charcoal in paintings like de Kooning, and that same day I was talking to my dad on the phone and instead of saying bye he said, ‘de Kooning forever’. Since then I’ve read his biography, he’s become one of my favorite painters. I think that that time in tattooing and art were important - I reference the 40’s and 50’s a lot - it almost felt natural to bring that in.
Oh yeah! I love Jake Coulter. What I like about him is that he is very humble and doesn’t shy away from identifying and paying homage to history. A lot of artists try to claim that they are the original of something and deny influence as though that makes something more valuable or interesting, and I appreciate the humility to reference but expand on historical movements. How do you think you developed over time and what drew you to these touch points in the first place?
I think that with the Guston stuff- who knows if maybe Ed Templeton was pulling from him, but one of Templeton’s most famous characters looks a lot like Guston, and obviously I was super into that as a kid. Maybe that’s why I resonate so much with those pieces. For the abstract stuff, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. That is like America’s first breakthrough style in the art world, and I feel like with the tattooing that I do, it’s a very American look- I like to lean into that. It’s interesting to me, the history of it.
When you compare something like this panther to this complete abstract, what is your process approaching a blank canvas?
Something like the panther head, I will do a sketch onto the surface and it is generally something that I’ve worked out before - something that I have rendered and ready to go that I know I want to paint. With the abstract stuff, it’s more about seeing colors or wanting to see certain colors together. Or sometimes I’ll set the intention with this painting to work on it over the course of six months and paint over things and not be precious about anything.
The world that I’m interested in there that you used is ‘intention’. What do you think your intent is? What are you expressing in your work or what do you want the audience to take away from it?
That’s a tough question. I can’t say I’m considering the audience every time, it’s kind of a selfish act. Maybe I could romanticize the idea of carrying the torch of abstract impressionist painting, especially living in New York City. It’s cool to keep those things alive.
If you were not a tattoo artist or a painter- if you were an accountant, would you still have a hallway full of paintings?
Yeah, definitely. 100%. I think I just lack the vernacular to get you to where I’m at in my head, and so the paintings sort of say those things for me.
If you give yourself months to work on something, when is it done?
That’s a question I’m asked a lot. That’s the main question I’m asked. I don’t know. I have no idea. When all the strokes are in place.
Like are any of these pieces done to you or would you paint over it?
Oh, yeah, I would keep working on anything in here. Paint them white, or add strokes, or whatever. I could paint over any of them right now. Nothing is precious.
That sounds like a torturous process.
I don’t think about it like that at all, I like that flexibility. You can see it as torturous, I see it as relaxed.
