Lark

Lark emerged in Los Angeles as a student of Kiki, a tutelage reflected in her current semi-abstract landscapes and other paintings. She began as a collagist and assemblagist, however, in response as much to the European "tradition" of collage as to Kiki’s informel abstraction. (She became aware of California assemblage after exhibiting her own.) The found-object works Lark produced in the 1990s and into the new century – mainly uniplanar compositions hung on the wall (and even framed) – mimic the elaborate, architectonic language of historical Russian constructivism, but leave evident the original function of the assemblaged elements, in a nod to Dada, Pop Art, and the Russian equivalent, Sots Art. For all her references to the mundane world of commercial objects and images, Lark maintains strong, dramatic structures in her compositions, often focused on circular or spiralic forms.

Peter Frank

lark lariSa PilinSky

at the end all i want iS harMony

SAMSARA SPINNING

LARISA PILINSKY, the artist known as Lark may have come to Southern California less intentionally as an artist than her eventual colleagues in the Bunker Art Group. But after settling into Los Angeles her fierce determination to become an artist took over and she never looked back. In addition to her evolving body of work as an artist herself, the Group drew on Lark's energy and background as a poet, journalist and even an events planner to mount and curate more than 100 Bunker exhibitions over 20 years at trending galleries and museums. "When I was a teenager, drawing people and their movements was as easy as breathing. I wanted to go to art school but my parents thought art might be impractical, so I pursued an education in industrial design. It delayed my art career for almost 20 years until my friends from the Bunker Group helped get me back on track. It was a second chance to live my childhood dream. "When I met Kiki the first thing he did was take me to the Museum of Modern Art. In Russia we were so used to realistic art, the only kind allowed in Soviet times, that abstract art in the beginning looked kind of strange to me. But with Kiki's descriptions and introductions I started finding the beauty in it. It made me think seriously about creating abstract art myself but I still was a bit afraid.”

GRANDMA'S MUSIC

Undaunted, Lark started as an apprentice to Kiki. "My job was preparing cardboard backgrounds for his collages and paintings. I enjoyed ripping tears in them and making lines and scratches. After that, simple surfaces started looking like rough modern art. And then, one day Kiki said to me, "I will not paint on it. It is already an artwork – your artwork!'" Although Kiki was Lark's mentor, only their philosophical approach was the same. She remembered his words, “I don’t think about what will occur when I create. I just go towards chance. But to take advantage of chance you have to be ready; then something new and original may happen.” So Lark started preparing herself to be ready for her chance. After working all day as a graphic designer she would drive 90 minutes in heavy traffic to her art studio. There she would dive right into the creation process, sometimes until three in the morning. For nine years she dreamt of quitting her full time job and was overjoyed when her boss announced her department was being eliminated. After that she fully immersed herself in art making, forgetting about it only while visiting her spiritual master Cealo in Japan. Meditation became an important part of her creation process. "I found myself using the interaction between

HOMAGE TO BOBO

meditation and my art materials, encouraging images to emerge from my subconscious. Creation for me has become a dialogue with the world. I listen for voices to lead my hand and watch for objects that appeal to my eye. "I hear the rusty voice of an old metal toy, the elegant whisper of a silk ribbon, the rustic secrets of a wooden armoire, the sexy baritone of a velvet glove. Together these sensual impressions turn into actors in costumes, or an orchestra of colors, or a ballet of lines and shapes. All I need is to choose who will be the star today and who will retreat back into the shade. At the end all I want is harmony. “Eventually I moved from collages to abstract landscapes. I started by creating pure collage/assemblages and gradually proceeded to add color, first with ink, then acrylic spray, then acrylic paint. Now I sometimes do the opposite. I start with pure painting and gradually add collage elements and objects. Both styles remain important to me; in fact I would still like to experiment more with my meditation-based creative process, to see where it will bring me."

R-R-R

Lark found more than her freedom as an artist in her new homeland. "In Russia I felt that the most important thing was society's opinion. Here I immediately felt that my life, my personal opinion and my creativity were as important as society itself." But she soon learned that artists needed a bunker right here in the United States too. "In the former Soviet Union we needed a symbolic bunker to protect our art from the political pressures of a totalitarian state. Here we needed such a bunker to protect our art – our authentic art – from the different pressures of commercial art markets. We found it in the safety of loving friends that help each other stay true to our inner artistic and philosophical beliefs." Lark is honored to be a member of the Bunker Group and represented in Sergey Djavadian's historic art collection. "At a time when there are so many obstacles in life and so many reasons to drift apart, this new exhibition and catalog, generously sponsored by Sergey, gives us a chance to feast on the artworks in his collection, to be in awe once more and inspired by each other's talents, and to feel the Bunkers' indomitable energy surge once again."

By Laurence Vittes