CHROMAGLASSA: An exhibition featuring new works by artists Amanda Smart and Priscilla Yu
Both artists will share works that explore the depths of the human range of emotions and psyche. Join us for a cocktail, intimate reception and a moderated Q&A session with the artists.
Amanda Smart (BFA, 2017) investigates contemporary human subjects and interpersonal relationships through realistic portraiture in oil painting. Her practice is informed by the academic traditions of Western European Baroque painters. She is notably drawn to chiaroscuro techniques and to the aesthetics of the Dutch Golden Age where painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer thrived. Amanda appreciates the idea of paintings being historical markers and thus includes low brow commentary in her portraiture such as clothing, tattoos, accessories and hairstyles particular to our time. In parallel, she explores the imprint of time through relationships and interactions by depicting superimposed bodies that levitate or that fracture the viewer’s vision via a similar aesthetic to that of the Italian Futurists of the early 20th century.
Priscilla Yu (BFA, 2013) brings her extensive mural practice onto the easel for CHROMAGLASSA. Her work is known for being vibrant in colour, movement and rich in texture. Priscilla’s aesthetic is an amalgamation of the 1970’s Italian fashion design, the 1980’s Memphis Style, the 2000’s Superflat movement and the offline underground contemporary art scene. Her technique is an interplay of employed constraints to draw out subconscious thoughts and spontaneity, balanced with design and composition. This is a process that she has developed for over 14 years and continues to evolve. Throughout her work, motifs and objects act as symbols of our world and our psyche.
CHROMAGLASSA encompasses common ideas and concepts between both artists. Transparency as a means of unveiling and veiling simultaneously, time as an imprint and a fleeting instant versus Painting as a sample of a moment in history. Each artist expresses these concerns through very different approaches. Amanda conveys multiple and partially obscured layers of paint in muted colours through a figurative style while Priscilla fearlessly layers bright, rich colours high in texture by means of geometric shapes and nature inspired patterns.
In the words of the artists: “These paintings deal with what one would say is a type of Phenomenology – a personal experience, one that deals with the more subjective versus the objective approach. The result is a less academic take on one’s memories or experiences, one that has more to do with senses and one’s own perspective in a time where it feels somewhat romantic to do so. We found from talking about our work that this gesture really is where the crossover is – not in the immediate aesthetic, but in one’s own interpretation of the world.” – Amanda Smart and Priscilla Yu
