SASHA MERET
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Ellipsis Art is an art advisory firm that provides a full range of services in art acquisition, collection management, and curatorial advice. Our mission is to create a direct dialogue between collectors and select artists and artists’ estates. By working exclusively with artists and their estates, we create a unique opportunity for collectors to acquire art directly from artists.
ANGELICA SEMMELBAUER / Art Advisor angelica@ellipsis-art.com
SASHA MERET Sasha Meret is visualizing ideas, weighing the metaphors and their suggestibility. He is evaluating their representations and reconfigures their spirituality in viable art forms. The magical is coexisting with actuality in the vast array of his themes. Sasha Meret’s modernity consists in his power and ability to construct a coherent universe where the initial idea could take unexpected turns with playful figuration, but will always stay to the end consistent and meaningful, enriched with humor and a wide range of multi-cultural references. His works are retelling fragments of myths, biblical passages, classical or contemporary odysseys, transposing visions and introspections of an artist in search of an intimate connection between form and movement. His works have force and grace creating a dialog between dream and reality, as cutouts from a larger scene where apparently random motifs belong to a well structured order. Few visual artists have Sasha Meret’s advantage, a solid cultural background constantly fed by his passion for literature and music, by his curiosity for philosophy and history of religions or the trends of thought in Europe, just to name a few. Fascinated by archetypal synchronicities that link or diversify the cultures of the world, Sasha Meret is juggling with universal themes adapting them to the specificity of his constructs, complex architectures where the symbolic aspect of the detail is reigning. Master of unexpected combinations of techniques, explorer of poetical textures, he has the intuition of the singing wood, of the story-telling linen, of the magical sand and Golden Fleece, searching in his own Labyrinths the inner openings towards a path of absolute expression. The diversity of his themes are met in a unitary manner keeping at the same time the charm of uniqueness. His ideas are subjected to harmonious
artistic vision “Meret” brand identifiable by the mystery that is codifying the architecture of his compositions. In his work the dream becomes part of a transfigured reality. In full creative maturity Sasha Meret is doubling his candor to continuously let himself be surprised by the fluidity of shapes and light. With lucidity and balance, with the frenzy of ideas and the patience to synthesize the architectures of his dreams in delicate miniatures or ample gestures, he remains attentive at the outer spectacle as well as at the inner miracle. “Myths, Archetypes & Architectures” Carmen Firan / Poet, Novelist & Playwright Sasha Meret’s complex mixed media works on paper, from representational to abstract, reflect his spiritual explorations, blending European, African, Asian, and esoteric symbolism in a highly personal visual language. He alternates figuration with abstraction in search for a balance between ideas and emotions. His main sources are his extensive readings on a wide variety of subjects - history, mythology, philosophy, religion, literature and physics. Sasha is a real essayist in the active territory of contemporary art. His striking originality is happily married to an innate sense of proportion and rigor. The existentialism he has lived in Romania before the fall of the communist regime has left a special mark on his artwork. Cultivated, subtle, and allusive, Sasha Meret possesses a great quality among intellectual artists: his richness of expression. There are baroque elements blended with Russian folklore that have colored his early childhood. He creates a sense of depth and fluidity that suggests a multitude of dimensions. The intricacy of his compositions is not interfering with clarity, on the contrary it is multiplying the recognition experience with every viewing of the work. There is an irresistible exuberance that makes his most esoteric works accessible. After all, he possesses a savoire faire that he’s quite aware of. (Sasha Meret “Reflections on Imagination” by Dumitru Radu Popa)
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SASHA MERET Recent Selected Solo Shows • • • • • • • • • •
2018 - December/2019 January - Meta-Mythologies - IF Museum, Easton, PA, USA. 2018 - June/July - Processions for Vanishing Parts - Multicultural Center Gallery of Transylvania University, Brasov, Romania. 2017 - June - Incendiary Artifacts - Shchukin Gallery, New York City. 2016 - December/January 2017 - Sasha Meret/Selected Works Rafael Gallery, New York City. 2015 - Fast / digiuno - AMY D ARTE SPAZIO, Milano, Italy 2014 - February - “Domestic Ceremonial Artifacts from the Lower Hudson Valley at the turn of the 21st Century” - Romanian Cultural Institute, NYC 2011 - December/2012January - “The Plastic Menagerie” at OK Harris Works of Art - New York City 2009 - October - East- West - New York City 2007 - May - Artislong Gallery - Kyoto, Japan 2007 - April - Quackart Gallery - Beijing, China
Recent Selected Group Shows • • • • • • • • • • • • •
2018 - 2019 Neonlitic - Romanian Cultural Institute, Bucharest, Romania 2016 - Bedazzled - Lehman College Art Gallery, New York 2015 - Art Southampton - AP Contemporary - Southampton, New York 2014 - SCOPE Art Fair / Barbarian Art Gallery - Zurich 2014 - ”Mystical Neo-Realism” - Barbarian Art Gallery – Zurich 2013 - Art Hamptons / Barbarian Art Gallery - Zurich 2013 - Russian Art Pavilion - The Armory Art Week, New York City 2012 - May/August - “A Conference of the Birds”, Cynthia Reeves Projects at Mana Contemporary - Jersey City, USA 2012 - April - “Swept Away”, Museum of Art and Design, New York City 2011 - December/January 2012 - Zadok Gallery, Miami USA 2007 - “Apertures” Cube Gallery - Beijing, China 2005 - October - “Invitational” - Kenting, Taiwan
ANGELICA SEMMELBAUER angelica@ellipsis-art.com
ELLIPSIS ART FOUNDER
ANGELICA SEMMELBAUER Angelica is a Private Art Advisor working with a variety of artists and consulting private clients. She is a member of the NYU Alumni Council and ArtTable, the leadership organization for professional women in the visual arts. 2005 - 2014 Director of Mimi Ferzt Gallery in New York City, which specialized in Russian Non-Conformist and Contemporary Art. Organized important curatorial exhibitions of prominent Russian artists, and successfully placed them in important private and public art collections around the world. 2004, NYU Masters Degree, Visual Arts Administration Published graduate thesis focused on building a sustainable global market for Russian Contemporary Art, tracing Russian art through its various historical movements, from Soviet era to the Russian Non-Conformist Movement, to discussion of today’s contemporary art in Russia. Catalog Design: Lisa Meta Griff, Metamorfize.com 84