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PALOMAS (Project mini) 40x30, oil on canvas,
Watercolors, special lacquers |
The gallery's glitzy interior, adjacent to the business world, is fitting for her show. The gallery, now more than ever has become a type of showroom, seated firmly within reach of corporate portals and business connections.
Oksana's work, a mixture of painting, installation and snapshot-style imagery, lines the walls.
There are snappy images, sometimes impressionistic, caught in a second as figures shoot through in a dash of movement and a haze of light. "Silk shawl" (2006) and "October 14th" (2006) are both examples of this prismatic style. Images, some blurred and meshed together, are an emersion of movement and light, a moving palette of colors that has left the studio and gone on a walk!
Photographic in nature, yet conceived in paint, Mas' images are popular, as they seek out everyday life, identity and female responses to her Ukrainian heritage.
Are these rather superficial meanderings? Are these a deliberate "lightening up" and glossing over of the heavy indentation of Soviet styles that dominated for so long? Mas certainly identifies with a more western and contemporary approach.
Oksana is a common name in Ukraine, and she feels she fits in and identifies with her fellow Ukrainians - yet her work is set firmly on a world stage. She is looking further than just a local feel; a cosmopolitan lean can be felt in the work with titles like, "LA Flirt" (2006), a street scene in Los Angeles with silhouettes of figures and cars.
Her work on canvas is particularly large (180 cm x 90 cm) and dominates a whole wall. The prices of Mas' work start from $US 4,000 for a small canvas.
A series or dialogue with shadows cast from objects, particularly the pigeon, is
a preoccupation. "The Third Shadow" (2006) 30 cm x 30cm, is portrayed in a simple, almost calligraphic style, of black paint and lacquer. "People and Pigeons" (2006), 120 cm x 100 cm is another. The pigeon is a universal bird, found in most cities. Its identity becomes more obscure as it covers more territory and becomes anonymous - or should one say "more integrated?"
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| SYMBOL 2006, 1800x1000, oil on canvas, paint, varnish |
Oh, there goes a pigeon!
We hardly acknowledged the poor creatures - only when there was a global bird flu scare! A carrier, mutating, socially gregarious, overpopulating, obese, the pigeon is there and answerable! Can we make some parallel here with our fellow human beings?
Mas' work is a mixture of paint or pencil with the admixture of lacquer, put on in copious layers to create a shiny, vinyl-like surface; associations like the shine of artificial nails or hair bonding material, usually for women, come to mind.
This combination gives the work that glossy, rather plastic quality, linked with all that's rather transparent about the world. You may not like Mas' work, for in some ways it does grate and irritate.
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TATOO 69, 2006130x160cm, pencil,
oil crayon, paint and varnish |
It does seem to be deliberately gender-oriented. In one example, "Infanta"(2006) surrounded by vigorous pencil marks, a woman, perhaps the artist herself, is peering into another space away from the viewer. She wears a figure-hugging dress with arresting stilettos…
Perhaps this work suggests woman as voyeur? But why place her with her derriere in the air as she peers away from us into a darkened space? Like a sword of Damocles, an ornate frame hangs precariously over the canvas with the threat of falling. Is the artist making a statement here about the role of her own art in the world?
Mas traveled widely after acquiring both engineering and fine art degrees in her native Ukraine. She is viewed as highly collectible and had a showcase position at the recent Art Kyiv Fair, at the Ukrainian House in early November. There Mas' work took center stage and was accompanied by four large cages with her beloved live pigeons inside, cooing and doing what pigeons do throughout the ten days.
Her work certainly reminds one of some in the early to mid 60's, the pop generation of artist who used shiny, often artificial, materials to get their message across.
Did another pigeon just fly by?
Works by Oksana Mas may be seen at the Da Vinci gallery, 17/52 Khmelnitskoho, Kyiv.
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