Reviewed by Two Coats of Paint
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Sylvia Naimark:
Night Transfigured
NMG gallery , nyc
November 5, 2020 – January 8, 2021
Nancy Margolis Gallery is pleased to announce its second solo exhibition for Swedish painter Sylvia Naimark, Night Transfigured. The exhibition will be presented in our online Viewing Room November 5th through January 8th.
Sylvia Naimark’s new body of work, Night Transfigured, comprises eleven oil paintings that communicate a coherent yet nonlinear narrative. Her haunting representations of atmospheres and figures convey the mystical, melancholic quality of Nordic light.
Naimark’s paintings are not evocative of objects or places in themselves; rather, the painting itself is the place and not an image of a place, but the whole reality. In Untitled, an effusion of deep violets and blues triumphantly asserts itself against the raw canvas background. Pocket I and Transfigured Night captivate viewers through a duality of light and dark. Here, Naimark’s use of texture, color, and form provoke inward, emotional responses.
While some paintings suggest figuration—such as Afternoon Park, Stair, and Glasses—Naimark relies on nonrepresentational sensibilities. Her works reach toward something transient yet precise. Counterpoint, for instance, is a stormy-gray composition, its surface reverberating with circles in contrasting hues. In Breathturn, a pale wash settles over an ashy foreground, appearing to ripple and change shape. Lonely Cloud, Forest, and The Other Side depict faint lines and contours of forms that gradually emerge, guiding us further into the works. These paintings point to Naimark’s interest in her materials: paint is scraped, washed, and reworked. The visceral effect of her slowly built-up, textural surfaces elicits an enticing dialogue between the spectator and Naimark’s worlds.
For Sylvia Naimark, “only what changes is real.”