Dog Secret
Nancy Margolis Gallery, February 15 – March 31, 2018
Nancy Margolis Gallery is pleased to announce Sylvia Naimark’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, Dog Secret. The show will be on view February 15th through March 31st, 2018, with an opening reception on Thursday, February 15th from 6pm until 8pm. Swedish artist Sylvia Naimark paints worlds imbued with mysticism, sublimity, and quietness. Dog Secret comprises 23 oil paintings that masterfully blend figuration and abstraction to conjure impressions of the familiar and the foreign.
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ARTIST STATEMENT
DOG SECRET – It is really a title of a painting; there is no other meaning, necessarily.
I love dogs. Sometimes they are just there. Or a gazelle, a bird, or another animal.
An encounter with The Other, with something you do not want to recognize in yourself, a reaction or alienation. Animals often avoid humans – or they just don’t care.
They appear as bearers of serene messages. Animals represent the inner and most intimate way of handling others and ourselves.
For Jacques Lacan – it should be no surprise – what separates that which we call human and that which we call animal, is language. It is a difference between response and reaction. They do not have a language; rather, they use a coded system of signaling, which is a fixed program, as opposed to the dynamic, symbolic interaction of the human. Animals, he argues, do not respond to questions; they react to stimuli.
In my work I am looking for a way to relate to the world, not for truths. There is no predisposed program – rather a sense of coherence. Painting is my way of thinking – it is about physicality, the materiality of the paint. I explore the mixing of colors and material. Both thin and thick layers of paint, gestures of human character – making marks, direct my actions. In between spontaneity, control, absence, presence, human gestures, light, darkness. Music. But ambiguity and doubt are my most important triggers. There are no answers – you become silent and visualize the doubt.
The initial idea of the work is rarely presented in the outcome and if so, it has been filtered through an untraceable maze. One work adds to the next in an unorganized stream of thought and experience. Perhaps they represent spiritual possibilities. And bring new meanings to times that were, will be, and will never be. There might be a hidden narrative there but I don’t know and I prefer it that way. I keep my works undefined to myself. It is necessary. A transient memory of another memory can describe life, death and everything else. It is in this imaginary reconstruction of things that I try to create.
Together the works present a larger story where each painting is an episode in a tale known to the figures themselves.