Your paintings have incredible detail. Can you speak about your path to art?
Since I could pick up a pencil, I’ve always drawn. There was never a doubt that
I wanted to be an artist. I went to Pratt Institute for illustration and graduated
with a BFA in communications design. While I now do marketing design for
a company in midtown and run my own company, Collective Consciousness
NYC, (providing creative services and having run a gallery for about a year)
painting/making art is my main objective.
Your work spans various areas of art—namely, painting, drawing, and graphic
design. Do you notice that they influence one another?
Definitely! While I have an intrinsic sense of it, design has taught me the importance
composition. It places things in perspective—understanding a foreground, middle
ground, background and how objects play off one another. In design, there’s no
space for error. Yet in painting, you have a lot more freedom. It doesn’t have to be
a certain way, and there really aren’t too many rules. I inadvertently use my design
sense in painting. I know that if I put something in a particular place, objects will
feed off each other and ultimately convey more clearly what I’m trying to say.
You have described aspects of your pieces as being influenced by social realism.
Although they address serious issues, they definitely have a very inviting and
familiar feeling to them.
Yes, they are. I grew up in Ukraine, during the last years of the Soviet Union.
Social Realism was my first introduction to art. Its glorified way of painting is
reminiscent of comic book art, where every character is beautiful with a perfect
body. In social realism, the concept and depiction often contradict the reality.
Stalin, Lenin, Marx, and Trotsky were not necessarily good looking or positive
individuals. However, in those paintings, they’re like gods to be worshipped. I’ve
always wanted to paint in that manner--elevating every moment and praising
every miniscule detail. While not in the Social Realist style per say, Raft of the
Medusa Revisited, (based on the tsunami and the nuclear power plant crisis
in Japan) deals with a serious subject matter in an inviting almost comic bookstyle
way. Raft of the Medusa was a famous Géricault painting from the 19th
century, demonstrating a historical event regarding a shipwreck, which revealed
class separation, exposing abuses perpetrated by the upper class of the time.
The wealthy people were able to get into lifeboats, and the sailors were left on
a makeshift raft, stranded at sea for weeks with no food or water. When finally
rescued, very few had survived. I used that image to show what Japan is dealing
with at the moment. Even as the waves of the horrible Tsunami break, what they
reveal is anything but salvation – the menacing grimace of Godzilla, a product
of the nuclear meltdown. While the concept is perilous, the waves are painted
in a serene and welcoming style, depicting the horror of the event in an esthetically
pleasing manner. Raft of the Medusa Revisited was featured at CATM
Chelsea gallery for ART LIVE TURNS FIVE curated by David Zelikovsky.
I notice such deep facial expressions in your work. They bring an immense
amount of emotion to the pieces.
It’s more in the eyes. They’re solemn facial expressions, but they’re not grimacing.
It’s more about how they feel inside. It’s also how I’m feeling. I would say
it’s 70% intentional and 30% pouring soul onto the canvas. The facial expressions
speak about the person I’m painting, but at the same time, speak about
how I’m feeling about the situation I’m trying to portray as well. I use a lot of
artistic license. Where there aren’t necessarily wrinkles, I put them there. They
add life experience. Even the ghosts of lines, when you barely see them under
the paint, add character and depth to an expression, to a person, and to a
feeling. Some people say because I’m Slavic, I have this melancholy, sadness,
and sort of poetic yearning for the motherland. I think it’s expressed innately
in my work. I’m not trying to run away from it. I want to be relevant and current,
but I feel like my soul is older than that. I want to paint both what I have experienced in my current existence, and what I feel like my spirit
has endured in my past lives.
Personally, I feel that art is a great vehicle to discuss political and social
issues which are occurring today without immense confrontation.
Your work is able to convey these matters in a very compelling way.
Thanks. I agree. I feel that a lot of artists aren’t looking back in order
to look forward. I don’t think people should run from the tough issues.
They should embrace them. These things should be pointed out and
made relevant.
What would you like your future work to accomplish?
I want to explore issues at a deeper level. You can paint to express
feelings, and you can paint to express ideas. I want to express both
in the best possible manner. I hope to make you feel a certain way
without me explaining it and for the work to have a message that one
can garner from it individually. It should have an innate feeling and
have a social, political, and satirical message. I want it to be about
the paint application, the brush strokes, the colors, as well as the
feeling you get by just looking at these compositional elements.
That’s what I’m striving for. It’s a lot!
What are some of your upcoming projects?
Mourning is the first work of a series where I’m using comic book
characters. I think they are a great mirror of society. I think we put
a lot of ourselves into them. I’ll be pairing them with political figures.
In many ways, politicians are considered icons. However, they’re only
viewed in this specific light because society has placed them under
it. If you knew them personally, they might be completely different.
I think these issues need to be spoken about. In a way, I’m building
a modern mythology around the people and characters which society
constructs, resulting in these invented personalities.
Theresa Barbaro
