Koppel has described his working methods as thus: “In my process of abstract painting there are ultimately two approaches that I believe impact my work the most significantly. One is to stretch canvas and begin to paint. The other is to pin the canvas to the wall, paint and then stretch the painting.”

Using these two approaches, Koppel allows his process to play a prominant role. If the surface is stretched, he determines that the painting will exist only on the front of the canvas, a process that inclines him to end the painting before he reaches the extremities of the canvas. If the painting begins on an unstretched surface it will potentially transform with unpredictable consequences when it is ultimately put on stretchers.

In the center of each painting exists a finger-painted square. This forms the abstracted image element of the otherwise methodologically driven painting. The finger marks represent a gesture that records the physical movement of the artist’s finger through wet paint, yet it lacks composition and is inevitably monochromatic. It thus forces the “image” to be discerned only by its surface, which might be understood to be the crux of Koppel’s inquiry.