New York and Berlin based painter Elizabeth Joy Peyton (b.1965) is an American artist best known for her stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends and boyfriends, pop celebrities and European monarchy. In this interview Peyton talks about how personality affects the features of a face. How one person can change the world, and how people are part of history and “make their own time.” People constantly change, which is why it’s interesting to capture them in a specific moment, she says.

“I get excited by people who make things,” Peyton explains. Artists are heroic, because they are vulnerable and risk a lot. Peyton’s paintings are about the people she is inspired by and admires, and hopefully her paintings will inspire others to also aspire to greatness, she adds.

The focus of Elizabeth Peyton’s work is the small-scale portrait. Her work is most often executed in oil paint, with glazes that are sometimes encouraged to drip, but she also does watercolour, drawings and etchings. Peyton has exhibited around the world, and her work has been included in the 1995 Venice Biennale, MoMA PS1 in 2000 and the 2004 Whitney Biennial.

Elizabeth Peyton was interviewed by Marc Christoph Wagner at Edition Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2013.

Camera: Matthias Nyholm
Edited by: Kamilla Bruus
Produced by: Marc Christoph Wagner.
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Supported by Nordea-fonden