ELENA ZOLOTNITSKY – #eatpraylovepaint

ELENA

#eatpraylovepaint

ZOLOTNITSKY

ELENA ZOLOTNITSKY

#eatpraylovepaint

Nov. 1st Dec. 23rd 2022

Bryant Street Gallery is pleased to announce #eatpraylovepaint, a new exhibition by Elena Zolotnitsky. As a figurative painter, Zolotnitsky instills in her subjects a psychological, deeply personal affect that allows the resulting composition to tell a story of memoir rather than physical object. #eatpraylovepaint will be on view from November 1st to December 23rd.

Bryant Street Gallery and Elena Zolotnitsky invite the public to join us for the opening reception on Saturday, November 5th, from 3 5 p.m.

Born in Moscow, Zolotnitsky moved to the US in 1989, and has lived in Oakland since 2012. She has carried her painting tradition with her across the globe. Her paintings are observational, capturing landscapes, portraits, and still lifes in loose brushwork. Many of the subjects are imaginary: a liminal stretch of fictitious field, the faces of people that may or may not exist. Her paintings take on an illusory quality, the lines separating subject and background bleeding into each other, the underpainting often showing through. Flowers are interrupted almost as if catching a glitch, unexpected colors appear in the curve of a cheek, chairs vary from punchy and vibrant to ghostly subjects fading into a background. She uses her brushstrokes to set in motion the atmosphere of the painting. Whether the subject is living or nonliving, whether it is small or large, it gains its own distinctive character. Inanimate objects speak of emotions, portraits of people gain qualities of landscapes in the planes of their faces.

Zolotnitsky’s paintings are permeated with the emotion of the moment, the subject merely a mannequin cloaked in feeling. It becomes a changing, moving, exploring thing, and the act of painting becomes a process of discovery. In her own words, “Since the painting itself is the main subject it is my main focus. I am left with surface, time, space and my own emotion. It is already too much to handle. … They are in transition, they are all becoming, just like myself.” A series of chairs circles the idea of a chair, but also so many other ideas, emotions, and images. They recall Plato’s perfect Forms, but instead of hunting for a single perfect chair, they search for the best representation of a constellation of ideas embedded in the shape of a chair a “single true bright note.”

#eatpraylovepaint will be on view at 532 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 from November 1st to December 23rd, 2022. For more images and information please visit the website at www.bryantstreet.com or email us at bryantst@mac.com

I paint archetypes. When a chair isn't really a chair, a flower isn't really a rose, and a face isn't really a portrait. Since the painting itself is the main subject it is my main focus. I am left with surface, time, space and my own emotion. It is already too much to handle. In order to make my point across I simplify everything else. In the finished work I strive for physical, as well as emotional depth in the layers of paint. At the same time being cautious not to “overdo” them. I prefer my paintings "breathing", with a lacuna of space here and there. They are in transition, they are all becoming, just like myself.

It's been a long road, almost 40 years spent in front of an easel. A life long of doing and thinking: what do I want to share with my paintings?

I like to think of my artworks as "sonnets" (a poetic form of a specific structure for expressing courtly love) conveying my admiration for life, art, beauty and enchantment in a format of a painting. I communicate my feelings and emotions in paint, its color and its plasticity. The way I am treating the surface sometimes unsaid, sometimes undone is an important part of each image. I try to make them as exciting and vibrant as I can in their seemingly repetitiveness. (How do you say "I love you" in so many ways?!). I treat every painting as a challenge, in tuned for that single true bright note, that I can start building the magic on. Allowing my sense of time and personal identity to dissolve into another dimension.

Elena Zolotnitsky