Nana Olivas “You can finish me”

Soho20 Chelsea Gallery

[Image: Nana Olivas "Super Rose of Love” (2016) Gesso, cow’s blood and varnish on muslin, 16 x 24 in.]

This event has ended.

SOHO20 presents You can finish me, a new series of paintings by member artist, Nana Olivas.

Olivas’ visceral surfaces are fleshy and dark, achieved through various combinations of her chosen materials: gesso, varnish, and cows’ blood, on linen or muslin surfaces. Many of the new paintings contain forms in ones, twos, and threes, which overlap and, in some cases, collide. The tension that activates each canvas lies in the gravity and motion of each form, simultaneously floating and falling within the frame. The process of creation echoes the corporeal familiarity intimated by each form. Beginning with raw canvas, Olivas pours on mixtures by the gallon – allowing them to naturally pool and flow into their desired shape before completely solidifying, then repeats the process.

The works capture the color pink – not the synthetic, corporate pink that signifies youth, pop music, and branded lingerie, but one that is darker and more honest to the crude sensuousness of the body. Her palette is rosy and vulnerable, as if each form was a living organ separated from its host. Yet, despite the work’s intimacy, this series seeks to expound upon more somber universal truths, particularly in regard to the implicit loneliness of the human condition; how no amount of empathy or understanding will ever merge one body with another. In spite of our closeness, Olivas suggests, we are nevertheless resigned to remain separate, individual entities.