IRINA KONONOVA
TERRA ILLUMINATA
FEBRUARY 18 - MARCH 17
Opening reception: Friday, February 20th, from 6 to 9 pm
NOMA GALLERY is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent paintings by Irena Kononova.
Stemming from a classical dualism suggesting the dialog of art with nature, the paintings of Irena Kononova reference an intricate symbology of opposing states in compellingly luminous, atmospheric landscapes. This work is a contemplation of many oppositions, of place and idea, the real and the possible, the actual and the supposed, all suggesting the provocations and ambivalences of perception within a visual fabric of the imaginary. Transcendent idealities of color and form merge with the empirical reality of possible loss, as eternal nature is confronted by the priorities and impositions of a human-made world.
Utilizing an evolution of multiple layers of pigment, turpentine leaks, and in many cases sand or marble dust, Kononova metaphorically depicts in large scale a series of earth histories, both as utopian vision and dystopian inevitability. Elegant, vaporous horizons of primordial light inform land spaces that are more liquid than solid, beautifully dense with pastoral temptation yet inextricably fused with a cautionary caveat; these are in a sense the unattainable places of memory, to be discovered in dreams, spoken as myth, and visually interpreted through abstract forms.