At first glance, Kevin Champeny’s studio at 279 Main St. in Port Washington looks like a contemporary gallery, its walls lined with intricate portraits and glimmering sculptures.
But behind the glass lies something more: a laboratory of sorts, where art, obsession, and engineering meet in a whirlwind of thousands of hand-cast objects, each painstakingly crafted by the artist himself.
Champeny is best known for his mosaics made from tiny resin components — gummy bears, flowers, pills, plastic cats — cast and colored entirely by hand. But few know that before devoting himself to full-time art nearly a decade ago, he was working in the aerospace industry, building solar-powered, carbon-fiber aircraft designed to float in the stratosphere.
“They were essentially low-orbiting satellites,” Champeny said. “I was building and designing these aircraft, and then one day, I met my now-business partner while re-dressing one for an airshow. He thought I was an engineer. I told him, ‘Nope, I’m an artist.’”
That chance encounter would alter the course of his life.
A shared curiosity and proximity between Champeny, who lives in Port, and his future partner in Great Neck led to an invitation to show his private artwork. Among the pieces: “What Remains,” a haunting skull composed of more than 35,000 tiny cast flowers.
“He said, ‘This is what you should be doing,’” Champeny recalled. “And two weeks later, I left aerospace and never looked back.”
Raised in Wisconsin, Champeny was deaf until his mid-twenties, a fact that, he says, shaped the way he viewed the world and communicated visually through art.
That early need to communicate through image and form has endured. Today, his large-scale mosaic portraits can contain up to 50,000 individually sculpted and color-cast elements.
“A single portrait might require 40 or 50 distinct colors,” he said. “Every tiny object is hand-made, molded, and placed. Nothing is painted, and nothing is store-bought.”
The process can take months. His largest work to date, “Drug Money,” a hyperrealistic 8-foot replica of a $100 bill constructed from more than 8,000 hand-cast painkillers, took a full year to complete.
For years, Champeny’s work remained anonymous, hidden behind the branding of corporations like Disney, Warner Brothers, and Estée Lauder. He even sculpted the master model for a cereal bowl used by President Obama. Now, for the first time, his name is front and center.
Since 2016, he has called Port Washington home.
“We’d moved 11 times in 25 years,” he said of life with his wife and children. “When we found Port, it checked every box: family-focused, safe, and equidistant between my studio work and my wife’s job in Manhattan.”
Champeny’s Main Street studio, by appointment only, doubles as a gallery. The walls transform regularly as pieces move in and out for collectors or exhibitions.
“It’s a working space, but people are welcome to visit. I love when they do. Creating alone can be isolating conversation brings the work to life.”
His style blurs the lines between photography, sculpture, and painting and relies on what he calls “provocative ambiguity.” He never explains a piece’s meaning, instead offering viewers the materials list and a suggestive title.
“Your reaction is the final puzzle piece,” he said. “That’s the point, to make you feel something and talk about why.”
Now, after years of building works for audiences around the world, Champeny is thinking of a tribute closer to home.
“I’ve been working on a piece for Port,” he said. “Something maritime. Boats, the water, the history here. Being surrounded by water in three directions is a dream for someone like me.”
With clients ranging from Taylor Swift (whose portrait he created out of 7,000 miniature cats) to major museums and collectors, Champeny’s work has earned international acclaim. Yet he remains deeply grounded in the place he now calls home.
“I walk to the hardware store three times a week,” he laughed. “Port makes everything easier. It lets me focus on what matters.”
For now, that means continuing to shape thousands of tiny objects into images that speak louder than words, one piece at a time.
Kevin Champeny’s studio is located at 279 Main Street in Port Washington and is open by appointment only, to schedule a visit, call 516-767-2024.
