Mosaic Artist Series #4 | Atlas
The Mosaic Artist Series #4 | Atlas
The Mosaic Artist Series blurs the line between art and craftsmanship, embodying everything that makes Mosaic uniquely Mosaic: the belief that form and function are not mutually exclusive. The design and craftsmanship of our frames paired with the intricacy of our paint process culminates in a heightened paint experience that you won’t find on any other bike. Meet the latest addition to the Artist Series, Atlas.
As the series continues to evolve, naturally, so do the contributing artists. Atlas was developed by Krysten Koehn, a local artist and athlete. Raised in Colorado, Krysten Koehn spent her adolescence immersed in the landscape of the Rocky Mountains. It is this landscape and her experiences therein, coupled with consistent itinerancy, that have critically formed her person and practice and surface frequently in the content of her work. You can follow Krysten on Instagram @koko_ehn and at krystenkoehn.com. Below are a few words from Krysten on her design and a gallery of her new GT-1 45.
"I can still remember the very moment my wanderlust hit me like a punch in the stomach. It was such a strong feeling–an urgent need, really–to discover what was out there, like my life depended on it. As soon as I could, I traded everything that was familiar for that which was unknown, that which is permanent for that which is transient. That one moment drove my decision-making and guided the trajectory of my existence for many years, and as my world expanded, my world started to become the world.
But the world is a big place. And while it often feels surprisingly small, it can also sometimes feel inhospitable, or unnavigable, or just plain big when one has to find “home” so many times over. The idea of using my body to subjectively map a landscape is a process that has helped me to do that, and it also serves an abstract way of thinking about making your mark on a place that is simultaneously making its mark on you. Having grown up here in the Rocky Mountains, using my physical faculties to establish a coalescence with my surroundings makes sense to me—finding harmony with a place through action. Feeling and navigating that place with my body. Using my physicality to push into the world around me and allowing it to press back.
I don’t think a day passes that my world is not indivisible with cycling. It is a sport that tends to permeate our lives in multiple embedded relationships. My artistic practice orbits around the interdependence of the body and the landscape with physical movement, mainly on a bike, as a form of drawing. Atlas is about rediscovering my Colorado home after a great deal of time and space have separated me from this place, and subjectively mapping my experience of doing so. Conceptualizing Atlas was an opportunity to make tangible this subjective mapping. I began with a cut vellum composition representing my navigation of Colorado and its layers and inter-permeation of some of those experiences, then overlaid the resulting composition on the frame over a fade of colors that are strikingly characteristic of the environment.
Riding a bike serves as a conduit and an underpinning by which I am able to dovetail into my immediate environment, to lose myself in the landscape and feel like I belong. It gives me a specific connection with the earth that otherwise can prove elusive. It allows a level of assimilation that nothing else does. Ultimately, this is what Atlas seeks to embody." - Krysten Koehn
Atlas is available now as an Artist Series paint layout on any new Mosaic, or as a re-paint on an existing Mosaic. Contact your Mosaic dealer for pricing.
