Takes Two to Tango

“Extinct Series”

Oil painting
by Elena Zolotnitsky

Oil on paper mounted on panel
17″H, 17″W

The Extinct series is a collection of semi-abstract characters. They are “portraits” of antique arm chairs, which exist only in my imagination. Each of them is colored into certain emotion. The first one I painted refused to come to life till I laid the gold leaf application on its backing, reminiscent of vertebrae… That intuitive move transformed the object of an old chair into a species of extinction. The reference that gave the name to the first painting and to the series. I see this collection as a logical progression of my creative journey. Over the past few years I have been more interested in the abstract qualities of the surface. Color becoming the essential means of expression. With the simplifying of shapes and composition and discovering a new complexity of color and paint application, I am not just painting a picture – I am experiencing one. The physical part of “experience” involves a lot of scrapings, impasto, transparencies, palette knife applications, accidents and false starts – working the surface till it starts breathing on its own.