Hi,

After a month of preparation, When the Screen Goes Dark opened at Chez Nous in Redwood City. Thank you to everyone who came.

When the Screen Goes Dark

This exhibition brought together my paintings with photographs by Tata Scutelnic. Together with curator Nelli Nedre, we replaced wall labels with a digital guide that visitors could explore on their phones.

Several of the paintings were made especially for this exhibition. The moon appeared first. Then came Hryusha, Stepashka, and Filya, the puppet characters from Good Night, Little Ones, a beloved Soviet children's television program that generations of people across the former Soviet Union grew up watching before bed.

The conversations were my favorite part of the opening. Thank you for your questions, your thoughts, and for sharing your own memories with me.

Later that evening, one of our guests, pianist Anastasia, sat down at the piano and played Glinka's The Lark. It fit the atmosphere perfectly.

Two paintings

6 pm was probably the painting people asked me about most during the exhibition. It's based on a memory from the years when my children were little. Around six in the evening, I'd sometimes lie down on the couch for just a few minutes, completely exhausted, before getting up to finish the day. I wanted to capture that feeling of almost melting into the couch.

Vera is a portrait of the poet Vera. We met at a friend's home, where she read her poetry and we spent the evening singing together. She has an enormous presence, but it was her warmth that I wanted to paint.

Hold Fast!

A week later I was back at Works/San José for Hold Fast!, the Members Exhibition. It was good to reconnect with old friends, meet new artists, and spend time talking about everyone's work.

New York

After the exhibition I spent a few days in New York with my friend Yulia. We hadn't seen each other in two years, so we planned the trip simply to spend time together and visit museums, galleries, and Broadway shows.

We stopped by The Vandals at Gladstone almost by chance, and it became my favorite exhibition of the trip. A painting by Celia Paul immediately caught my eye. It felt light, quiet, and full of air. I also liked Sang Woo Kim's cropped portraits and was happy to discover that Ella Rose Flood's hand is made from papier-mâché rather than bronze or ceramic. Since I've been working with papier-mâché myself, I looked at it with particular interest.

The Whitney Biennial and MoMA were also on our itinerary. Seeing Pierre Huyghe's UUmwelt in person was especially meaningful because it helped shape the idea behind Symbiotic Drift.

One of the highlights of the trip was finally giving a portrait to my friend, actress Elina Kaplun. Last November I joined two performances of her solo show Lunatic in Santa Cruz, performing the role of a celestial star. Around Christmas, before Lunatic received an award at the New York City Fringe Festival, I painted her in character from the performance. When Elina first saw the portrait, she said it felt more like a portrait of her than of the character. It was wonderful to finally hand it to her.

Reading

I finished Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. My favorite chapter was about Takashi Murakami's studio. The scale is almost impossible to imagine, but I smiled when I read that he struggles with the same thing I do: dust settling on fresh paint.

Back in the studio

Before starting a new group of paintings, I spent a day decluttering the studio. I hadn't realized how much I missed having empty space.

Next

This Saturday I'll be taking part in the artist talks at Berkeley Art Center as part of the Members Exhibition.

I've also put together a PDF of available works. View the catalogue.

Thank you for reading.

Anna

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