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ULTRAMODERN SOLITUDE
Iv Toshain
Opening reception June 26th, 7 - 10pm
Exhibition: June 26, 2009 - August 9, 2009
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Iv Toshain is a young Bulgarian artist currently living and working in Vienna. Her series of recent drawings, paintings and photographs, take a pointed and ironic look at an environment that mirrors the social codes with stereotypes, consumerism, brain drain, power exertion, frivolity, material life and reflects them back to her audience, beautifully slick and glamorous, through a very dark mirror. These images, are layered with the underlying disturbances that occur in a culture that celebrates youth, accievements and worships physical attractiveness.
"There is even something absolutely inhuman about the face," wrote philosophers Deleuze and Guattari in teaching us about faciality, or face perception, one of the few instincts attributed to humans (it is said that there are no true human instincts, or actions that we follow irresistibly). Such inhuman faces are to be found in Iv Toshain's drawings. Toshain uses transparencies on top of drawings, effectively having the demons and beasts emerge X-Ray-like from the smooth skin and groomed hair.
While her photography prints offer a more scientific approach, the loose quality of the paintings and drawings offer more of a personal insight. The seemingly simple gesture of paint to canvas generates a rather complex Rorschach which presents an interesting psychological challenge for the viewer to negotiate. At first site the viewer is drawn to the stunning visual aspect of Toshain's painting. A hyper-real beauty that simply cannot be avoided. The observer is being pulled in by the formal qualities that are perfectly executed with rich over saturated color and elegantly balanced form that mimic nature. Yet, upon closer observation, these forms don't actually exist in reality which raises questions about what it is we are actually seeing. This mysterious blend of recognizable imagery reconstructed into new and some what frightening forms begin to create a narrative that challenges the viewer to address issues such as humanity's impact on the environment, human interjection into evolution and a host of social issues currently consuming our species.
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