october 2020

Collaborate, Create and Heal

May 1-29, 2021

“Collaborate, Create and Heal” by Andrea Moni and Yuri Boyko
Opening in Orange County

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art will be opening an exhibition by two contemporary artists Andrea Moni and Yuri Boyko, who both address the healing power of art. The exhibition will open on May 2  and continue until May 31. There will be a reception on Saturday, May 2, from 6:00-10:00 pm. at OCCCA, open to the public.

 


Andrea Moni finds beauty in the broken and imperfect.  Her newest work incorporates personal trauma into creative expression.  In late 2015 a serious accident left her with third-degree burns requiring a month-long hospital stay and years of physical and mental rebuilding. Drawing inspiration from the people who helped her during her recovery, she developed a collaborative process of working with individuals suffering from various kinds of trauma.  One at a time, Moni and her newfound collaborators set up a temporary art studio beside a natural body of water, painting on large canvases, using the motion of the waves to layer natural earth pigments onto the surface. This process became an intimate exercise with profound psychological implications as memories of traumatic experiences were symbolically washed away. Later, alone in her art studio, Moni unearths mysterious, hidden figures on the canvas, ciphers of pain expelled from the psyche. By adopting “Kintsugi” philosophies of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life, Moni does not hide the imperfections. Instead she displays the brokenness, illuminating their unique significance.

The medium is the ocean and the message is salvation. The specific site for this art making is a patch of shoreline, the unique ingredients are the jostling waves that run with the winds and the heat of the sun at the break of day.”
– Chaos as Deliverance: The Environmental Art of Andrea Moni By Dr. Jeanne Willette

 


Yuri Boyko is a multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. His artistic practice focuses on the deconstruction of identity, exploring states of loss and triumph, pain and pleasure. He is eloquent when he speaks of the human condition.  “Our disillusionment over unfulfilled desires, and our endless struggle to find harmony amid life’s many doubts, can reshape our understanding of the world, and lead to personal growth, transforming our lives.” The process of individuation is vividly expressed in his moody photographs that mingle the sacred with the profane. Despite the transient nature of life, Boyko’s nude figures leap with unbridled exuberance. Boyko was a recipient of the Art on the Outside Award for public art in the City of West Hollywood. Through Photo Independent, Los Angeles, Boyko received Second Place Award, by Paul Martineau, Associate Curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Boyko was also selected for a Short List of Artisti Primiati (Top Artist) at the V Biennale of Contemporary Art in Genoa, Italy and Artist Residency at the Center for Research and Creativity Casamarles in Barcelona, Spain. He received partial Grant Award for Artist Residency at Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT, and Quick Grant Award through Creative Capacity Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, Los Angeles. Boyko’s work has been published in FULL BLEDE (Los Angeles) and Uncoated Platform (Berlin), and he was interviewed by VoyageLA for their Hollywood's Thought-Provokers column. Last November he appeared on the Paris based internet TV channel, Bastille.tv preceding Fotofever 2019 art fair.

 

What is most exciting about this exhibition is how each artist interprets and connects their medium with the subject of healing. Working from two different disciplines, painting and photography, while investigating the awakening from the past, launching the soul, and proclaiming an existence into the future.  

   
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