Thursday, January 12, 2012
foodies in exile: paintings by bryce vinokurov
foodies in exile: paintings by bryce vinokurov
www.bvinokurov.com
artist statement:
For the past six years I have lived in Davis, California, a small town in Northern California, largely surrounded by agricultural fields. After ten years of living in Boston Massachusetts, my move left me feeling in exile from the urban city life I had become accustomed to. However, the inspiration of the Northern California landscape and the emergent national fixation with the sustainable food industry and culture quickly became an inspiration. As a result my largely abstract work has been populated with figures and landscapes. The subject of the work revolves a group of foodies who are not set in a specific time or space. These satirical pieces include groups of individuals on bikes, around grills, donning chef hats or handling other accessories, but with other comforts of the modern world unspecified. I enjoy the idea of these foodies exiled to an idyllic place-cooking on grills, fighting over recipes and arguing over who is the best chef. These characters battle each other with pizza peals and chef’s knives. They hold petty grudges over recipes and fight over truffle pigs. They wage war over food poisoning and have been exiled to a land that looks like Umbria, Tuscany or Napa. The foodies are nomads with grills banished to a life of locavore eating. The inspiration for the landscape these foodies in exile often find themselves in, and the composition of these groups are heavily influenced by the painters Giotto, Piero della Francesca, and Lorenzetti. For the last 4 years I have been going to Italy to teach in the summer, and the Umbrian and Tuscan landscapes and light pervade the work. The body of work includes large and small oil paintings, collages, linocuts, and intaglio etchings.
www.bvinokurov.com
artist statement:
For the past six years I have lived in Davis, California, a small town in Northern California, largely surrounded by agricultural fields. After ten years of living in Boston Massachusetts, my move left me feeling in exile from the urban city life I had become accustomed to. However, the inspiration of the Northern California landscape and the emergent national fixation with the sustainable food industry and culture quickly became an inspiration. As a result my largely abstract work has been populated with figures and landscapes. The subject of the work revolves a group of foodies who are not set in a specific time or space. These satirical pieces include groups of individuals on bikes, around grills, donning chef hats or handling other accessories, but with other comforts of the modern world unspecified. I enjoy the idea of these foodies exiled to an idyllic place-cooking on grills, fighting over recipes and arguing over who is the best chef. These characters battle each other with pizza peals and chef’s knives. They hold petty grudges over recipes and fight over truffle pigs. They wage war over food poisoning and have been exiled to a land that looks like Umbria, Tuscany or Napa. The foodies are nomads with grills banished to a life of locavore eating. The inspiration for the landscape these foodies in exile often find themselves in, and the composition of these groups are heavily influenced by the painters Giotto, Piero della Francesca, and Lorenzetti. For the last 4 years I have been going to Italy to teach in the summer, and the Umbrian and Tuscan landscapes and light pervade the work. The body of work includes large and small oil paintings, collages, linocuts, and intaglio etchings.
# posted by David Michalski @ 1:04 PM 
