DIVIDED LINE

The reception of ONTOLOGICAL is tonight 6 - 9 @ Skylight Gallery (538 W 29th street). 

All the details about the show are on this page.

DIVIDED LINE:

1

EIKASIA

(illusion)

2

PISTIS

(belief)

3

DIANOIA

(reasoning)

4

NOESIS

(understanding)

Photo documentation regarding the recent approach of creating all the works in the show here.

DETACH

One of my series from ONTOLOGICAL, the exhibition opening this Thursday @ Skylight Gallery !
Please contact Samantha Levin for any inquiries: art@artanagnorisis.com 646.712.2820

This is a drawing series I started working on during my last visit to Russia. These works were originally brought forth from the need to continue my experimental process, after the completion of the modus operandi sketchbook. Since intuitive at its roots, the theme of the series was open for a long time. Eventually I realized that content was being injected into it, derived from events and experiences during my stay.

Upon getting closer to completion it became evident that the central concept was letting go of a place in a material sense. Time and space are connected, and since memory is of a specific point, which has been gone, the relationship to it is only present on a non physical level. The essence is the thing of value to me, while due to a lack of connection in the current point in time, the space in its material form becomes alien.

*Poem in Detach #10 "I Hate Mankind" by Konstantin Balmont

IMPERMANENCE

SUPPORT

EXTERNAL

PAST

HOME

THORAX

TORN

STRING

TRANSIENT

I HATE MANKIND

WITHDRAWN

ONTOLOGICAL

Glad to finally announce this upcoming exhibition ! I'll be showing a drawing series, and a painting series, along with studies and individual paintings that came out of the process of these new works.

The opening reception is next Thursday, July 25th 6 - 9pm @ Skylight Gallery NYC (538 W 29th st.)

Once again Samantha Levin is responsible for organizing the whole thing, 

check out her page with the write up, and more info.

Contact her for any inquiries: art@artanagnorisis.com 646.712.2820

Divided Line Introduction

This painting is an introduction to the series idea for which began as an observation of a personal obsession with the recurring imagery of arches, holes, deformities, reflections and other elements of the environment as a symbol of a portal/passageway.

 Those closest memories and most remarkable dreams, for me, are connected to the location where I spent my childhood and am constantly revisiting in the current (more conscious) state and time. While digesting the idea in my head I realized that subconsciously I was making a connection to Plato's allegory of the cave/divided line, which has always been on my mind in the recent period of my life.

The walk from the subway station to my apartment in StPetersburg is the most frequent passage of space I have revisited in my life, and so it has ingrained itself in my head with dreams and memories, becoming a metaphor for the progression throughout the levels of comprehension (in Plato's allegory of the cave).

There are several progressions in the series, taking place simultaneously but individually:
Formally the images move from showing depth to a flat surface, while appearance wise they take a more recognizable look in the end. Regarding surface treatment, in this case, the string of canvas is the physical manifestation of the divided line of progression. The passageway begins as an artificial movement of an escalator, emerging outside onto the river of transportation through concrete, railings and wires, eventually the human reflection makes the shadow of its own presence apparent.

The basis for an observation is achieved out of these evolvements, when upon reaching the end of the line some understanding is accomplished. The realization of a place of a human being in his surroundings, and his relationship to it, in a brought sense (of humanity as an organism) is painful but necessary in order to enlighten the artificial cage of the mind.

Driving itself on its own assumptions and empty conclusions unreasonably focused on the material sensory realm. Natural light on an unnatural material which was pervertedly transformed from something once alive is an example of how attempting to subordinate the nature and its cycle, to support the bias framework of desire, and excess, reveals its futility of not really moving ahead but staring into a closed door.

Constructing a cage only to later occupy it ourselves.

Enlace

This painting was commissioned by the client, as a gift to her beloved. Naturally the subject matter is their relationship. The image is based on several photos of a fascinating tree, they both took during their honey moon.

Incorporating my own approach of juxtaposing layers, I explored various symbology of connection: the grid of the golden spiral contained within the grid of the picture plane in an abstract formal compositional sense; the skeletal structure of the tree mirroring one side with the other, spreading like adam to eve; the puddlemaking and selective local painting serving as the documentation of the manifestation: accidents, actions, and events holding the relationship together, yet in a natural, organic form.

Forest commission

Have grown very sick of reporting my life to the internet recently, and took a break. Back now, with a lot of updates.

Still doing a bunch of commissions to make ends meet, but more importantly have a big show coming up in July/August.

This is a recent commissioned painting I've completed. The interesting part of it for me, was that the client was very fond of a painting that sold (forest) from the remain series, which I made purely for myself.

And so I got to revisit that idea.

Though similar the process was naturally somewhat different this time around.