LA artist makes works
of oppressed beauty
The landscape paintings by Lark are mysterious and hauntingly beautiful. The abstract nature of her whispery brush strokes prompt one’s subconscious into finding a surreal place within the scene. The feeling of being cradled in the arms of the earth, protected, yet free, overcomes the senses.
In order to understand the unfamiliar, but also familiar waves of emotion that you find yourself engrossed in, you must first understand the artist. Born Larisa Pilinsky in the remote mountains of central Asia and raised in the Ukraine, Lark discovered her love of art while in Russia. Making her mark while in the midst of the Bunker Art Group of Armenia, she immigrated to the United States in 1991.
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Vol 5 No 4 Through March 27, 2010
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"Now Tender"
oil, acrylic, collage & black coral on canvas, H29.5” x W36”
"Red Windows"
Mixed media on cardboard, metal, wood, sand paper 22x25 IN
The Bunker Art Group of Armenia is an acclaimed group of artists that began to express their emotions through experimenting with color and abstract art even though they were not supported to do so. After the late Soviet repression was stripped, the group emerged and daubed themselves “Bunker” as they arose from the underground. Today, the Bunker group is recognized all over the world, including members form different countries.
Lark credits her learning of self-expression in an oppressed environment by practicing spiritual meditation that is carried on today. A Zen artist relies on the Buddha nature of a scene or object and allows their inner self to release the restrictions of the subconscious. This realization is summarized in her statement:
“My art is about the intuition and improvisation, not planning, not sketching, but diving into my subjects, metaphorically speaking. I do this by allowing my subconscious free rein, opening my sensory perceptions to the world around me: uniting myself mentally with the universal wavelength.”
Another artist looks
at the railway station
Editor's note: In a previous writing by Kay Sluterbeck, which is currently in the Archives Department, she looked at a painting by Edouard Manet showing his impression of living near the Gare St-Lazare railway station. Here she tells you about how another artist painted the station, with very different results.
In 1876, Manet’s friend and fellow painter, Claude Monet, moved into a studio apartment in the Rue Moncey, close to the Gare St-Lazare. At the time he also had an apartment in the Rue d’Edinbourg which was even closer to the station. (Including his house at Argenteuil Monet actually had three residences; it seems he was far from being the stereotype of the “starving artist”!)
Monet, the son of a grocer, was born in Paris and grew up in Le Havre. In 1856 he met Eugene Boudin, who introduced him to painting from nature. When Monet worked in the studio of Charles Gleyre he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others who, like Monet, would become highly influential Impressionists. He enjoyed going on outdoor painting expeditions with Edouard Manet, and it is enjoyable to compare paintings done by Monet and Manet of the same scenes. You can see that each artist worked from a slightly different viewpoint, and with different styles.
Claude Monet did many series of paintings showing the different effects of light and weather on the same subject. Between January and March of 1877, he painted twelve pictures of the station. In the fourth Impressionist exhibit, which opened in April of that year, he exhibited seven of these railway station paintings.
The railway station, at that time, was probably the single most powerful symbol of the importance of industrialization to modern man. Because of this, many artists were using railroads, stations, and trains as subject matter, each presenting these things in an entirely different way. The artist Turner, for example, saw the train as a powerful force, a dark and menacing creature roaring unfeelingly thru nature. Edouard Manet, in his painting “The Railway,” chose to hide the train in a cloud of steam so he could depict a more human scene.
But Monet’s view of the railway station is very different from either of these interpretations. In this particular painting -- one of four surviving canvases representing the interior of the station -- he painted the train as a delicate black shape contained in the airy web of the station’s ironwork. Monet is oncerned with light and atmosphere, just as he would have been in painting a landscape of water and trees. But here the light is given a special character by the presence of smoke and steam filtering the sunlight.
As a group, the twelve Gare St-Lazare canvases were the last of Monet’s “modern-life” subjects. After completing these, he turned completely to painting the natural landscape.
Pilinsky’s work has been featured in solo and group show, bringing an exclamation of soul awakening from her audiences. The Nickelodeon Animation Studios, the Avatar Art Gallery and the Museums of Contemporary Art in Armenia and Russia have presented Lark’s recent works and have been selected through juried competitions by the SoHo International Art Competition and the Foundation of Collage Artists of America.
For more of Lark’s work, visit her website at www.larkgallery.com. For more information on the Bunker Art Group, visit www.saluteamerica.org/art by the bunker group.htm.
"Colors of the Wind"
oil, acrylic, collage, & black coral on board, H12” x W9"
Lark resides in Los Angeles, California and continues her painting and poetry.
“Portrait of Monet”
By Pierre-Auguste Renoir
“The Gare St-Lazare”
oil painting, 1877, by Claude Monet
In fact, his views of the Gare St-Lazare are very much landscapes, but they are interior landscapes. The smoke from the engines creates the same effect as clouds in the sky. Monet’s quick, sure brushstrokes indicate the gleaming engines and the crowd of passengers on the platform.
