REVIEW: Sochynsky's new artworks (12/21/03)

REVIEW: Sochynsky's new artworks

by Christina Saj

NEW YORK - Ilona Sochynsky's new work being exhibited at the Ukrainian Institute of America this winter is a departure from her familiar style. A recent visit to her studio provided insight on her new preoccupations and influences. After a decade on the New Jersey Coast, her work boasts a new feeling of openness and light. Her compositions have given way to simple airy compositions. These pieces are a significant departure from earlier work, in them she displays a much lighter touch.

Ms. Sochynsky began her transition with a series of miniature oil paintings, such a "Dialogue" and "Enigma" and "Confrontation" - in which she pared down and flattened signature bright compositions to just a few elements. The modest size of the works made it natural to simplify her color relationships and her compositions. One also often feels the distinct relationship to landscape.

Moving away from the dense, packed compositions full of bright color juxtaposed with dark, hovering, ominous shapes, Ms. Sochynsky is finding a new voice in small whimsical floating objects. Her new studies have evolved as works on paper incorporating watercolor and/or pastel.

Using the white of the paper as her backdrop, she explores independent fragmented images which are clearly informed by her previous renderings of a very personal vocabulary. Individual shapes, often ambiguous and imbued with a personal twist render them momentarily reminiscent of recognizable forms. And yet they simultaneously obscure any particular association, as they hover hauntingly, reminding us of the often surreal juxtaposition of images found in her monumental works. In these works she seems to be exploring a personal shorthand.

Through the use of simple recurring shapes and interrelationships - Ms. Sochynsky continues to develop her own undeciphered mythology.

Ms. Sochynsky's exhibition at the Ukrainian Institute of America opened December 5 and will run through January 31. To see more of the artist's current work, readers may log on to http://www.ilonasochynsky.com.

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