Mimi Oritsky
Soft Wet to Hard Dry
October 24 – November 17, 2019
Amos Eno Gallery is pleased to present Soft Wet to Hard Dry, an exhibition of new works on paper and canvas by Mimi Oritsky. Soft Wet to Hard Dry features paintings that employ her signature mark-making with a focus on observed detail. An opening reception will be held on Friday, October 25 from 6-8 PM at the gallery’s location at 56 Bogart Street in Brooklyn, NY.
Soft Wet to Hard Dry refers to two categories of perception: the soft, wet pieces of foliage over moving water or the hard, dry, sun-drenched rock and slate. When these two categories overlap in our environment, light and placement vie for importance in the artist’s eye. This activity becomes the focal point of Oritsky’s observation. Her fascination with airspace provides the backdrop for line and color to offer what the artist describes as “attention to the atmosphere resting on forms and soaking up the translucent elements.”
In this select group of recent work on paper and canvas, the artist engages elements of nature with definition and intricate detail. Oritsky’s choice of color schemes produces elegant images that create light through an alternative process.
Oritsky’s working process involves shifting between extreme vantage points, from very high to very low, and how the qualities of each can be translated into paint. While drawing the elements from above, Oritsky is aware of how we lose eye-level perspective and anticipated angles. These losses force her to explore space, scale, and time. Discreet forms exhibit a sense of urgency, reflecting a desire to fill the vast stillness of the space or to escape tense clusters. Alternatively, the low vantage point of works made close to the ground results in compositions that are familiar but hard-to-place. Within these parameters, Oritsky blends abstraction with representation (in and out of control) as they spiral apart then come together.
Mimi Oritsky received an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Oritsky has received Purchase Awards from the Reading Public Museum and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts/Arcadia University. She was awarded Residence Fellowships from the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation, the Millay Colony for the Arts and the Artists for Environment Foundation. Oritsky currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
Image: Mimi Oritsky, New Growth No.1, 2017, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches.