Yevgeniya Baras - December 2020
“Surf Point is a place that links the resident artist to a number of histories: the biography of the studio and building where art has been made and ideas have been exchanged for decades, to Maine where so many artist colonies have thrived throughout time. This is very palpable and special to experience, that lineage. And in addition to history there is the austere and powerful nature that seeps into the studio. Its sounds and geometry are inescapable. The residency is a fantastic place to reflect and make work, near the rugged and timeless coastline, in the presence of remarkable histories.”
In researching Surf Point residency, I found myself interested specifically in the landscape. I am inspired by the coast, the rocky textures, the openness and vastness of this land. Also the light really left an impression on me. I am excited at the potential of being immersed in this environment. One of the main themes in my paintings is landscape. Nature is often edited, simplified: sky ground, moon, sun. Landscapes are not typically done from observation. The result is a kind of symbol of a landscape. I also assign pictorial emblems to individual elements of nature. Over and over do I find so much mystery and awe in the landscape. I recall the feeling of smallness as a human in the desert of Sahara, in the mountains in Greece but these journeys are infrequent. In actuality I am so rarely outdoors. I live in Queens where the environment is industrial. I do not have time to observe slowly because of the speed of everyday existence in New York.
Yevgeniya Baras is an artist living and working in New York City. She is represented by Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in NY and the Landing Gallery in LA. Yevgeniya is a 2019 recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner grant and the Chinati Foundation Residency in 2018, and the Yaddo Residency in 2017. She received the Artadia Prize and was selected for the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program and the MacDowell Colony residency in 2015. In 2014 she was named the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Emerging Artist Prize. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, LA Times, ArtForum, and Art in America. Yevgeniya's current solo exhibition is in LA at the Landing Gallery. Her next exhibitions are at Inman gallery in Houston and Station gallery in Sydney. Yevgeniya co-founded and co-curated Regina Rex Gallery on the Lower East Side of NY (2010-2018). Yevgeniya has curated and co-curated over twenty exhibitions at Regina Rex and other galleries in NY, Chicago, and Philadelphia. She has a BA and MS from the University of Pennsylvania (2003) and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). Yevgeniya teaches at RISD and Sarah Lawrence College.
More of Yevgeniya’s work can be found here