Suzi Evalenko – Statement

What I see is what inspires me. But, it is just a starting point. A portrait and figure painter in oils for many decades, in 2013, I began an exploration of increasingly abstracted figuration and flattening of space and an intensive period working in mixed media collage, pieces of original imagery cut from prior paintings on paper or canvas. Pieces chosen for their visceral appeal or color, shape, or line, and stripped of their original emotional content and compositional role, the collaged reinventions formed new compositions in which abstraction and geometric shape predominated. My most recent body of work, predominantly still lives, on view at First Street Gallery in April 2022 in an exhibition titled ‘Dialogues’, continues this exploration of the tension and interplay of figurative content and abstracted imagery. Collaged, and painted, elements take on a ‘disruptive’ role, or introduce incongruous imagery in the context of the subject matter, blur traditional notions of perspective or foreground and background, the picture plane itself, while striving to co-exist harmoniously. A second conversation in these works, between the past and the present, is carried by two objects, treasured possessions I have lived with since my earliest childhood memories, tokens of family and home, that remain sources of inspiration and invention.

For further information about the artist or her work, contact: sevalenko1@gmail.com. Click here to see more work.