Brookline Arts Center Presents A New Exhibit by an Emerging Boston artist, "Hard Pressed": Paintings by Vanessa Irzyk
Young artist gets close and portrays the emotions that lie hidden.
April 7 - 25, 2008, Opening Reception: Friday, April 11, 6 - 8 p.m.
TAt first, what you see looks like a whirl of colors, a patchwork of circles, squares, and lines against a bright white background. The longer you look at Vanessa Irzyk’s paintings in “Hard Pressed” the more you see individual faces, twisted by strong emotion or sudden movement.The Brookline Arts Center will feature Irzyk’s emotionally charged portraits of friends and strangers in Hard Pressed, from April 7 - 25, 2008 in the Brookline Arts Center gallery.
A native of New Bedford, Irzyk is a recent graduate of Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a member of the Brookline Arts Center faculty.
“Vanessa’s paintings are an examination of psychology and physiognomy: looking at them, I see moments and emotion captured through skeins of intensely colored paint. Yet they are all intimate as well. Some of the paintings are even miniatures, so that you need to get very close in order to see them,” according to curator Susan Navarre.
All of the faces certainly crowd up to the viewer. “I call this series “Hard Pressed” says Irzyk, “because each one of the people I painted seems to be forced right up to the surface of the painting.”
According to Navarre, “With echoes of contemporary expressionists like Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, these faces don’t rest too easily on the canvas. Yet Vanessa has a quirky and fun approach to color, her sophisticated atmospheric earth tones will jostle against an unexpected touch of cherry red, bright teal or lipstick pink. That’s part of their complex psychology.”
Hard Pressed is on view at the Brookline Arts Center, 86 Monmouth St. in Brookline, from April 7 - 25. An artists’ reception will be held Friday, April 11, 6 – 8 p.m. and is free to the public. For more information, call 617-566-5715 or visit www.brooklineartscenter.com
