The world of fantasy often serves as an escape from reality, its limitations, and its many social, economic, and corporeal restrictions. Reality, in turn, is often desired amidst the delusions of the fantastic. However, the two are not always separate.
Dissolving the boundary between the fantastic and the real, 68projects’ residence artist Yevgeniya Baras's paintings are porous objects that remix the restrictions of any stable realm.
In these artworks that are between object and image: material has its own life. Burlap, wool, tire rubber, fabric, stones, and wood are often physically attached to the paintings surface and simultaneously incorporated on the surface to become part of the image of the painting.
Through referencing what appears to be ancient codes, Baras's works affirm and erase narratives. Whenever a pattern becomes recognizable it is foiled through its repetition and transformation, never holding onto a symbol enough to imbue it with a solidified meaning.
By resisting using defined symbols and constantly changing them – Baras's works become of cycles, and of flows. Her paintings play with time and embody ideas through process – shapes in her paintings become outlined as if the edges dance – holding the boundary of a shape but not rigidly.
Pulling from a diverse set of references from Shiva Lingam paintings which are seen as symbols of energy, to the abstract physicality of Elizabeth Murray's work, to the delicate and decorative from Florine Stettheimer and to the Early American Modernist Visionary works of Forrest Bess – Baras's works are physical, archaeological and gritty – taking abstraction to its most tactile moment and then folding in cryptic codes on the surface of the paintings that the viewer is invited to decode.
Yevgeniya Baras is a painter living and working in New York, NY. She received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Fine Arts and Psychology, alongside an MS in Education and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a Recipient of the Graduate Honors Fellowship. Baras co-founded and curated Regina Rex Gallery from 2010 – 2018 and was the co-founder and curator of Bull and Ram a Migratory Curatorial Project from 2011 – 2015. In September 2019 she will present a solo exhibiton at Reyes Projects in Detroit, MI, USA as well as another solo exhibiton at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York, NY, USA.
She has shown at many institutions and galleries in the United States including: The Landing, Steven Harvey Fine Art, Jeff Bailey Gallery, FiveMyles Gallery, Morgan Lehman Gallery, and Gavin Brown Enterprise among others. Her work has been featured and reviewed in publications including: Art Forum, LA Times, Art in America, New York Times, Art News, New York Times Review, Huffington Post and NY Magazine.
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