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Lydia
Bodnar Balahutrak
"Hide
and Seek"
March,
2010 |
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| “HIDE
AND SEEK”
Solo Exhibition: Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak
Nau-haus Gallery, Houston
- March 2010
Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak was
born in Cleveland, Ohio, completed her undergraduate art studies at Kent
State University, and, in 1977, received her Master of Fine Arts degree
in painting from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. That year
she moved to Houston with her husband Michael, where she continues to live
and work.
.
In
the studio, left to right, Tangles,
Curtains, Snow,
Snags,
and Hedge
Lydia
Bodnar-Balahutrak Gallery Instalation at Nau-haus March 2010
Hearts-a-Bust'n,
48"x 60" mixed media on canvas
"As a child of immigrants, a first-generation American, I was always drawn
to explore “the other.” I want to understand the world and my place
in it. I engage in the play of “hide and seek”, which I believe is the
heartbeat of life -- the pulsating rhythm of lost and found, yes/no, inside/outside,
positive/negative. In my creative work, I’m compelled to dig through, to
lift the veil, to reclaim and protect, to construct and de-construct what
I find. "
.
Fallout
75" x 96" oil, resins, collage / canvas
"All human beings, it seems, need order as well as disorder. There’s
a proclivity to encounter the unexpected, manifested in curiosity and intense
experience, but there is also the ameliorating desire for harmony and calm."
"For me, collage is a way of piecing things together. Seemingly fragmented
things come together and are given some shape and coherence. I collect
newspaper and magazine clippings, save treasured mementos, keep bits of
cultural artifacts, and then arrange them onto canvas, wood panel, or paper.
The collages accrue and become grounds upon which, by combining disparate
materials and processes, I can play hide and seek. Through layering, scraping,
torching, veiling, and applying various markings with paint, charcoal and
other media, some elements are concealed, others revealed, and a narrative
begins."
.
Snow
132" x 83" charcoal, chalks, gesso, collage / canvas |
n 1985
Bodnar-Balahutrak was awarded a grant to participate in an international
art symposium in La Napoule, France, the first of several artist invitations
and residencies in Europe. In spring 1991, an IREX grant enabled her to
travel to Ukraine, her parents’ ancestral homeland, for the first time.
She was a guest lecturer at the L’viv Academy of Art. In 1993, she
participated in a two-month international artists’ symposium held in Ukraine,
and received a Creative Artist Program Award in Visual Art from the Cultural
Arts Council of Houston for her artwork that resulted from that residency.
Two years later she was a visiting artist at the Art Academy of Kyiv, and
her 1996 trip included a tour of the Chornobyl Zone, site of the 1986 nuclear
plant explosion. In 2006, commemorating the 20-year anniversary of the
Chornobyl cataclysm, a selection of her work was exhibited in a solo show
at the University of Houston Art Gallery.
"I
recall my first visit to Ukraine, to my parents’ home. Upon
my return to Houston, I was compelled to embed Ukraine’s ancestral story
onto my own. I used copies of historic texts and photos to document
the ravages of the little-known 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine and the horrors
propagated by the Soviet regime. I wove these into icon-like compositions,
often shrouding the images with broken gold leaf. Fragments of embroidery
and other handiwork were interlaced with images of my face and hands.
Symbols of oppression were reconfigured or burned, and the charred remnants
became grounds for new imagery. These were my first forays into collage."
.
For
the Birds 41" x 61" oil, resins,
collage / canvas
"In 1996, ten years after the nuclear cataclysm of Chornobyl in Ukraine,
I visited the Zone, ground zero. I was struck by the wildly overgrown
abandoned buildings and grounds. Trees were breaking through concrete floors
and taking root; apple trees were laden with golden ripe fruit. Nature
was resolutely reclaiming herself, regenerating life and spreading her
healing mantle over the dust and decay."
.
Hedge
60" x 65" charcoal, chalks, acrylic , collage / canvas
The
vines and berries, the flocks of birds, and the tangles of trees and branches
in my art work are not exotic nor enchanted, but ever-present and close
to home. Life grows out of the layered ground and spreads out over
images of war and suffering as well as those of joy and jubilation.
.
Detail
of Hedge
The
poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: “Nature is never spent; there lives the
dearest freshness deep down things.” Despite everything, even
in the face of destruction and loss, humankind’s instinct for clarity and
beauty lives on and arises from deep down things to create something new.
.
Tangles
60" X 65" charcoal, chalks, acrylic, collage /
canvas
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Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak
has participated in several national and international exhibitions and
her work can be found in museum and private collections. Her current mixed
media paintings and drawings continue to explore collage, text, and figuration.
A monograph focusing on her art from 1979-2001 was published in 2005.
Since 1977, she has taught studio painting and drawing at The University
of Houston at Clear Lake and HSPVA, and is currently on the faculty of
the Glassell School of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In
March 2010, her solo show titled “Hide and Seek” will be on view at Nau-Haus
Art Space in Houston.
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Naü-
-haus
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223 E. 11th St
Houston Texas, 77008
713-482-8357
On
view weekends noon to 5 during May
or
by appointment / 713-261-1409
contact:
dan@nau-haus.com
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