September 6 – October 1, 2022
Khurieva’s compositions dwell in vivid imagination, with surprising juxtapositions, abstracted figures and delightful contrasts of artistic mediums.
VillageOneArt presented Inga Khurieva: Dream Worlds, the artist’s first solo presentation in New York City. Bold colors merged with organic forms throughout the suite of works on view, creating surreal scenes in visually complex landscapes. Khurieva’s compositions dwell in vivid imagination, with surprising juxtapositions, abstracted figures and delightful contrasts of artistic mediums. The artist’s range spans an impressive grasp of texture and materiality while drawing from robust artistic references such as Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí and OSGEMEOS. Vibrant color gradients traipsed through speculative fictions composed on the canvas, and Khurieva’s delightful scenes offered viewers a portal for realizing the layers of narrative present within our own subconscious mind.
In Khurieva’s work Life of a match, human figures encircle a green orb, each subject frozen mid-action, whether crying, genuflecting or flying suspended by mythological creatures. A playful orange slice emulates the sun, with sunflower and vermilion-colored clouds receding into the distance. The quixotic scenario seems larger than life, even mythical. The artist extends this playful ethos to the painting Time. A figure pauses in the middle of eating cherries, yet this seemingly straightforward scene becomes more confusing upon closer inspection: a bunch of cherries is suspended in the man’s open mouth, with a smaller figure enclosed in a bubble launching from the subject’s mouth. The artist’s paintings draw from a childlike and humorous sense of wonder, with conceptual rigor and technical excellence combining to great effect in this debut solo presentation in New York.
Inga Khurieva: Dream Worlds offered a fresh, contemporary take on surrealism for a new generation of dreamers and art patrons.
Works in the Exhibition
Dream Worlds was on view at VillageOneArt, 150 West 25th Street, Suite 403, New York, from September 6 to October 1, 2022. For inquiries regarding available works by Inga Khurieva, please contact info@villageoneart.com.