Alina Shapiro
Portals of Perception
October 27 - November 17, 2009
Reception:
Thursday October 29, 2009 6-8 PM
Press Release
In works that display her masterly draftsmanship, Alina Shapiro composes faceted geometric tableaux and narrative images with a highly technical handling of both color and tone. Her images are intriguing – one gets the feeling that within the fragmented elements are layers of meaning and allegory – sometimes clear, sometimes just beyond the edge of reason. The diverse elements that make up Shapiro’s images are a result of the intuitive process she employs in their creation. Their base is the imagination, the playing out of a role; from there, new images arise and are added as the work builds up. This is art as revelation, not as prescription.
Alina Shapiro’s work shows her to be a masterly colorist with a real joy in her handling of subtle color with fine textured brushstrokes. These really are the backbone of her paintings and endow them with strength and vitality. Born in Baku Azerbaijan, Alina Shapiro emigrated to the States with her family in 1990 and currently lives and works in New York.
Artist Statement
Before I approach a canvas, I picture myself as something or somebody else, I start imagining. What appeals to me is that imagination does not exclude real space, but uses it; it does not isolate itself from irritating sounds, but masters and incorporates them into the background music that is the emotional foundation of the image in formation. Such are a painting’s first sparks. Later, each new image gradually expands my created space like colored pebbles elaborating a mosaic. This causes a certain fragmentariness in my work, which stems not from destruction, but from deliberation in the search for my mosaic's next element. When each new element I discover something previously unseen — my conception, once clear and predetermined, becomes unrecognizable, asking me new questions and setting me new tasks. This process has no fixed end. It never leads to a declaration; it is purely the search for the poetic image.
Invitation to the exhibition
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