Hot Coffee Conversation with artist Emma Kohlmann
Published Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Emma Kohlmann is a well-known American artist who uses drawing, painting, zines, digital art, and writing to investigate pre-Christian, earth-based spirituality centered around the divine forces of nature in relation to individuals. A New York-born artist, Kohlmann, who now lives in Western Massachusetts, surrounds herself with natural forces and rhythms. Her paintings and works on paper are minimal, focusing on one or two figures or faces, using primary colors, all of this bringing the viewer’s attention to what is essential. By being selective and intentional, Kohlmann rebels against the oversaturation and overstimulation of modern culture, opening herself to new ways of relating to one another. I visited Emma’s studio in 2018. It was one of my first studio visits with contemporary artists, memorable in many ways. Emma’s current show at Silke Lindner, New York, titled Moon Minds, on view through October 4, gave me a perfect opportunity to reconnect with this unique artist.
Nina: Imagine you are in your favorite coffee or tea spot. Where is it? What are you drinking? What are the three things you see right now?
Emma Kohlmann: There used to be a coffee shop on the Upper West Side called Café La Fortuna. When I was 12 or 13, I’d go there—it was my first taste of freedom in the early 2000s, exploring the city on my own. I used to go on friend dates there, and it felt so grown-up, like preteen sophistication that I definitely wanted to have but couldn't really achieve. The café was famous for being a haunt of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the late 1970s, when they lived in the Dakota. Though it closed in 2008, what drew me to the place was its magical, almost mystical atmosphere. It felt subterranean, tucked away, with a back courtyard garden and dim lights softened by handkerchiefs draped over lampshades. Stepping inside was like slipping back in time, into a hidden bohemia where beatniks might have lingered, chain-smoking cigarettes and yelling over loud music being played on a record player. In this fantasy of Cafe La Fortuna, I would order an oat milk cappuccino, surrounded by odd thrift-store paintings, beaded doorways, and geometric wallpaper. Sometimes, part of me retreats to this place.
Emma Kohlmann, Are we cycles in one another?, 2025. Watercolor and sumi ink on paper. 22.5 x 18.5 inches | 57 x 47 cm + frame.Image courtesy of the artist and Silke Lindner.
Nina: In this new body of work, you turn to pre-patriarchal, earth-based spirituality centered around the divine feminine. This theme is recurring in your practice. Can you please tell us how it has been developing over time - did you change forms, symbology, approaches since you started working through this theme?
EK: I feel as though I’ve been trying to articulate new ideas within my work for years, retracing the same themes for as long as I can remember. The process has always felt deeply intuitive. When I feel stuck, I often retreat into books. When I encountered the work of Monica Sjöö, I began to understand how art and spirituality can serve as vessels for transmuting ideas. I’m fascinated by the notion that in ancient societies the human body was regarded as a living timepiece, profoundly attuned to the rhythms of the earth and sky. By contrast, our contemporary experience is increasingly defined by disconnection and dissociation—from the body, the natural world, each other, and even from the moon, once central to humanity’s sense of time. There is something deeply compelling in the imperfection of natural cycles—the way things come together and fall apart, carrying their own kind of wisdom. In my practice, this manifests as a kind of personal archive. Images resurface and repeat across my work, not for resolution, but to reveal new possibilities. I am never satisfied with just one iteration; it always feels like a search for something just out of reach, something I’m never fully certain of.
Installation view Emma Kohlmann: Moon Minds, Silke Lindner, New York, September 5 - October 4, 2025. Image courtesy of the artist and Silke Lindner.
Nina: Your work has consistently stood out for its near abstraction and minimalism. Did it come as a natural progression to you, or was it your primary approach starting in art school?
EK: I think I discovered my own work simply by making—over and over again. I never went to art school, and my practice has always been shaped by a kind of self-discipline outside of academia. I often struggle with where my work belongs. I’m not a clean or minimalist person, yet I’m incredibly regimented in how I approach making. I love creating piles of drawings, experimenting with different mediums, and finding new ways to push materials. I dislike wasting material and try to use things up as fully as I can. I have a lot of ideas sometimes, and I’m constantly wrestling with how best to convey them. In many ways, it feels natural that I arrived at this point, though it also feels like I had to try everything to get here. My intention has always been simply to make; the aesthetic has always come second.
Emma Kohlmann, Living Archive, 2025. Acrylic on linen, stained frame. 51.5 x 51.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Silke Lindner.
Nina: I remember our studio visit in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 2018, and you still reside there. Do you feel that living in this environment affects you as an artist?
EK: You were one of my very first studio visits, and I felt so lucky to have you in my space—it was such a rare experience at the time. I’ve really come to appreciate the intentionality of living outside the city. Here, I wake up and can work for as long as I need, with natural breaks built in—walking in the woods, swimming in streams. I feel fortunate to have discovered that this way of life suits me, even though I never expected to end up in a small town. Growing up in New York City, I was used to the subway and the constant stimulation of what was happening around me. What shapes me most now as an artist is knowing when I need social connection and when I don’t. I like being able to dip in and out—immersed in projects for stretches of time, then returning to New York when I need to see friends and catch up on art.
Emma Kohlmann, It rose between the trees, 2025. Watercolor and sumi ink on paper. 22.5 x 18.5 inches | 57 x 47 cm + frame. Image courtesy of the artist and Silke Lindner.
Nina: As we live in a politically turbulent world, where do you see an artist or their mission?
EK: This is a question I think about all the time. I try to stay aware of what’s happening in the world, and I feel the weight of it in my own work. I have the luxury of thinking about these things all day. Sometimes I feel like art can be futile—like, what’s the point? Why am I here? Is this important? It can even seem self-perpetuating, an ouroboros eating its own tail. Sometimes I think my mission is to make work that moves people, that resonates with the depth of my own feeling and, I hope, with others’ as well. I don’t really know if that’s contributing or detracting, but I hope my own belief system—one that imagines utopian ways of relating to one another as a society—comes through. Still, I think that can be asking a lot of the artist.
Emma Kohlmann, The Sands are of the times, 2025. Watercolor and sumi ink on paper. 22.5 x 18.5 inches | 57 x 47 cm + frame. Image courtesy of the artist and Silke Lindner.