Sculpting Print

Ira Simidchieva is an NYC-based artist originally from Europe. She focuses on contemporary abstract figurative art and abstraction. Previously she had a strong interest in the landscape. Even though she has experience working with and exhibiting in different materials like printmaking and sculpture, her preferred media and materials are oil paints on canvas. Ira utilizes an eclectic, contemporary approach to create colorful artworks that are unique editions; she does not use prints nor multiplies her work. Most of her works are done on solid wooden frames with pure linen stretched firmly above and primed with classically handmade prime. The images she paints have no analog in reality and everything in the painting: color, structure, composition, is sourced in her imagination. She maintains the view that an artwork is a metaphor and everything in a painting is language: the color talks, the shape talks and the different elements in the painting communicate among themselves. The whole painting communicates a non-verbal message that is transmitted to the perceiver. Painting is a way of expressing oneself, an inherent necessity. Currently, her art, being inspired by the psychoanalytical thought, is experienced, just like psychoanalysis, as ongoing research of states of mind and feelings in relation to their connections to reality. A detailed sense of her view about art can be gained from her article “What Is Common Between Psychoanalysis and Art” that was published in the Manhattan Instate for Psychoanalysis blog: Ira has two solo exhibitions and has been part of numerous group shows in Europe; her works are part of private collections throughout Europe and the USA.