GALLERY LINKS
INTERVIEWS + FEATURES
Feature in Seattle Met
Interview with Brush Work Podcast
ARTIST STATEMENT
I create hand-written algorithms to transform text documents into colorful oil paintings. The algorithm uses "if/then" statements that connect my abstract visual language to the direct language of a text document. Working with a seed image of a figurative or floral under-drawing, the system instructs me to either cover the organic shapes or pull from them. One small moment in the drawing can cause a ripple effect of painted marks echoing off of and overlapping each other. By designing different zones across the canvas to reflect a different set of rules, I have the ability to establish weight and focal point. The combination of this chance process with my highly designed visual language and color system produces a dynamic tension between controlled and spontaneous elements.
The texts I translate are redacted through the act of creating the painting. Each letter equates to one brush stroke in the painting and as I complete the brush stroke, I mark it off with a dab of paint on the text document. This process produces a secondary painting of the marked-up text which I call an "algorithm byproduct." The texts are effectively destroyed, so I select texts that embody societal harm. I often focus on laws or legal documents since those are written accounts which explicitly state the priorities of society or what is accepted as civil. These documents are sometimes filled with violent and exclusionary language, representing a status quo of objectification that is still embedded in our contemporary way of life. Through the act of transforming them into paintings, I can obscure, reorder and highlight the words that make up the text, disarming them and building something beautiful and empowered out of them.
BIO:
Ilana Zweschi is a Chicago based artist represented by Foster/White Gallery in Seattle. Her work is held in the collections of Meta, Microsoft, and the Port of Seattle, and she received the DASH artist grant in 2022. She has exhibited nationally, with notable group shows including Tiger Strikes Asteroid in New York, Museum of Museums in Seattle, and Out of Sight: A Survey of Contemporary Art in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been published in New American Paintings, interviewed by Youngspace, and featured on the opening page of the Culture section of Seattle Met.
Zweschi graduated summa cum laude from Skidmore College in 2011 with a BA in Art and Mathematics minor. In 2014 she earned an MFA in painting from the University at Albany, SUNY, where she received the Departmental Thesis Award.
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