Ira Upin

I was born in Chicago, IL USA in 1948, went to college in Illinois and Maryland and settled in Philadelphia, PA in 1973 and stayed. For 35 years I'd go back and forth between working at construction and working in my studio. At age 57 I decided to spend the rest of my time in the studio.
The two constants in my work have been the narrative and the intensity of the visual. I want the viewer to be intoxicated and perplexed by how I make my paintings and intrigued by the stories I'm trying to tell. I'm interested in human dynamics whether they be social, political, or emotional.
- In the end though it's about randomness and our inability to control that randomness. Things happen - anything can happen and we want somehow to control it, but we can't. Art is a good attempt at trying.
- Fashion is ephemeral, so I never concern myself with what is fashionable, which in the end puts me in and out of fashion depending in what decade my work is being considered. I’ve been doing some version of the same thing for 50 years.
- At the elemental level of life itself, if you stop and think, everything is essentially something we do to keep ourselves busy between birth and death. The in between is the variable from one person to the next. Are...

-Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting, 1971, University of Illinois
-Master of Fine Art in Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art, 1973

Group Shows:
2021 Finalist (EXPOSURE) See/Me, Scope Miami Beach, FL 2021 Virtual Gallery, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. 2021 Dreams and Their Edges, I Like Your Work Online Exhibit
2021 Emerging Scene, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 2021 Salon at Triton, 3rd Place in Painting, Triton Museum of Art Santa Clara, CA 2021 WHATEVS, Art Fluent, Online Exhibit, Director’s Choice Award, Boston, MA 2021 (Exposure) New Realism/ Altered Reality, See/Me Booth, Scope Miami, Miami, FL 2021 Show of Heads, Limner Gallery, Hudson, NY 2021 FEMME, Art Fluent, Online Exhibit, Boston, MA. 2021 Portraiture, Manifold Global, Online Exhibit, Philadelphia Region 2021 Stories of Love, Spotlight Art Collective, Online Exhibit, India 2021 STAND, Art Fluent, Online Exhibit, Boston, MA 2021...