Larisa Pillinsky, “Melting With Nature”.
Larisa Pilinsky began her career as an apprentice for the well-known Armenian artist Kiki (Grigor Mikayelyan), founder of the Bunker Art Group, consisting of dissident artists from the former Soviet Union. As Pilinsky puts it, “Kiki is a master of abstract expressionist techniques and for a few years I was his apprentice, preparing backgrounds for his mixed media artworks. At some point Kiki told me that he can’t work anymore on some of the backgrounds I prepared for him because they are finished artworks.”
Honored by the complement, Pilinsky began working on her own style of painting, collage, and assemblage, often exhibiting with other Bunker Group artists. The artist continued to explore avenues of expression, approaching both her collage work and paintings with what she describes as “an intuitive search for harmony between colors, shapes and lines.” Presently, a number of Pilinsky’s collage paintings are on display at Quoting Artists Gallery, Los Angeles.
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Of particular beauty are Pilinsky’s nature paintings, which the artist paints into seemingly magical environs that invite the viewer on a spiritual journey. Her fascination with nature began as a child. “I was lucky to be born in the pristine nature of the Celestial Mountains of Kyrgyzstan,” explains Pilinsky, “and to grow up in a 16th-century Ukrainian city, Kamenets-Podolsk, surrounded by a wild forest, soft hills, and small and big rivers.”
Larisa Pilinsky, “Melting Light”.
Fast forward, and Pilinsky has now lived with her husband in Los Angeles for 22 years, enjoying the Palm Springs desert and Mammoth mountains, which now influence her work. Many of her spectacular, mystical landscapes appear to be done by palette knife. In fact, Pilinsky uses a number of tools from small pieces of cardboard, wood, and plastic or credit cards. As with in her collages, Pilinsky enjoys using found objects in which she “senses their hidden history and character.”
Larisa Pilinsky, “Taming Time”.
On the one hand, Pilinsky is a world traveler, on the other, she is a spiritual seeker, seeking the mystical in all things. “Because the spiritual world and my peaceful presence in it means a lot to me, very often the process leads me to magical places,” says Pilinsky. “I don’t know where they are, but I find peace and harmony there and invite a viewer to step in my painting and submerse himself in this fourth dimension state, which is usually very healing.”
“Collage Paintings” by Larisa Pilinsky on view at Quoting Artists Gallery through September 27, 2015.
