DARIA IRINCHEEVA @REVERSESPACE,BROOKLYN

For her first solo show at Reverse Space, Daria Irincheeva has explored her own mythology. A young artist on her way of earning a Bachelor’s degree from New York’s School of Visual Arts, Irincheeva has made an exhibition that uses various media to communicate an age old tale. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia she has only been in New York for the last few years and beyond being a student, and a practicing artist, she also is the Director of Family Business,  the microscopic yet influential gallery founded by Massimiliano Gioni and Maurizio Cattelan located on 21st Street in Chelsea. Wearing many hats, for Avoid this Water, the artist has added her role as woman and daughter to the mix. Her focus is an epic journey, the documentation of migration and fragility. There is a domestic quality that resonates, perceptible in photographs, some of which appear to be of the artist as a child and others who might be older relatives. The 4″ x 6″, black and white images have been slathered in a now frozen substance. Both evidence of a physical interaction and visual interference, within the context of the other works in the exhibition, the matter functions as earth,  almost as if burying something to get that much closer.

In another piece that could be perceived as an endless attempt to bury oneself (or head) in the sand, is a projected video  featuring the unclothed body of the artist, writhing in a counter-clockwise rotation on a sun drenched beach. The motion repeats as if in a struggle to go somewhere without breaking a pattern. An exhausting effort is put forth as flesh is marked with fine grains of sand. It’s a strong piece in the early stage of a career. At the center of the exhibition is the artist herself, fragile yet assured in her journey even if at times unstable. Not unlike the delicate egg shells used in Not Yet/Already Over (egg carton, cement, empty eggs and wood) a sculptural work, there is a fine balance that will only become more harmonious with age and practice. In Semiprecious/Semifake, crystals align a shelf on a far wall,  stones that have been decorated with glitter, reminders of yearning for a spiritual equilibrium and power to heal. The artist states that this work in particular corresponds to Russian ideology after the collapse of the Soviet Union, “..when capitalism roughly crashed on failed socialism”. In a chronicle of time and spatial experience, the artist reveals metaphysical longing as prescribed in nostalgic resonance. It’s youthful transference in an album with room for many more pages yet to be filled and ripe with history from a distant and recent past.

More soon.
Xo