Invited artist: YULIYA LANINA

Broken

acrylic on paper

I bring a dissonant charge to the work I create. Playful and quirky on the exterior, my work uses whimsy as a device to draw closer inspection, leading to greater awareness and introspection among viewers. Once engaged, the viewer often finds evocations of the dark matter that is the underbelly of human existence, striking a primordial balance.

Through my work, I examine the relationship between absurdity and trauma with a particular focus on physical and psychic reconstruction through reassembling disparate parts. My theme is always consistent -- stitching together the fragments of traumatized consciousness.

Yuliya Lanina is an interdisciplinary artist whose work exists at the intersection of visual art, performance and technological innovation. A secular Jew of Ukrainian descent who was born and raised in Moscow, Lanina arrived in New York in 1990 as a political refugee. There she established herself as a pioneering artist on the cutting edge of combining digital technologies with the handmade media.
 Lanina’s honors include Fulbright (Vienna, Austria), Headlands Art Center (CA), and Yaddo Colony (NY). Exhibitions include SXSW (TX), Seoul Art Museum (Korea), SIGGRAPH (Japan), 798 Beijing Biennial (China), Teatro Santa Ana (Mexico), Blanton Museum of Art (TX),and Cleveland Institute of Art (OH). Lanina lives in Austin, TX with her husband and twin daughters. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice at the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies at The University of Texas at Austin.