03/10/2011
Organic Fiction: Paintings By Hava Gurevich
THE HAMPTONS PERIOD
In September of 2009 I moved from an apartment in New York City to a small cottage on Eastern Long Island - trading crowded subways and gym workouts for salty ocean air and daily nature walks, city lights for expansive starry skies, chic restaurants and exciting nightlife for local farm stands, deer in my yard and solitude.
On my daily walks through the natural landscape, I began noticing, and really seeing, the smallest details; the shapes of tree branches, the color of sunlight in summer and winter, patterns in ice and reflections in a pond, spectacular fall colors, intricate twisted vines and delicate spring blooms. I am especially attracted to the repeating patterns I find in nature, from one life form to another. These human-scale patterns imprinted in the environment repeat themselves both on a microscopic and macroscopic scale.
Much of the inspiration for my paintings comes from photographs I take of the natural landscape around me; trees and vegetation, marine life, rock formations and insects. I do not try to copy those images...rather, I let them inspire me to create a vocabulary of biomorphic shapes and gestures that echo these patterns and retain the organic quality, yet allows me a visual voice to explore my own reality.
BIO:
Hava Gurevich was born in Russia and spent part of her childhood in Israel before moving with her family to Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her BFA in Photography from the University of Michigan in 1990, and her MFA in painting from Illinois State University in 1998.
Professionally, she has worked in the arts for more than 20 years as a photographer,
educator, art dealer, web designer and art curator. Her intellectual and artistic curiosity is matched by her love of travel, having lived in several major cities (Milano, San Francisco, Chicago, Calgary and New York City) as well as a few small towns.
Miss Gurevich currently lives and works on Eastern Long Island, New York.
