Ira Simidchieva Presents Solo Exhibition: The Holding and Containment of a Good Enough Painting 

LIC Arts Open invites you into the contemporary abstraction and figurative world of Ira Simidchieva in her 5th solo show. Through a traditional approach to oil paints on canvas, Ira creates metaphors in her pieces. The colors talk, the shapes speak, and the paintings communicate internally and with each other. Ira has displayed her pieces globally and is collected privately in the USA and Europe.

This series is inspired by psychoanalytic thought - the states of mind and feelings in relation to reality.

As written in the Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis blog, "Reality and art, reality and fantasy interact, oppose and complement each other. The problem of the relationship between reality and art in the mind of the artist is of paramount importance for a theoretical understanding of what constitutes

the creative act. Reality and creation are a fundamental pair in any art, their interaction the essence of any creative act. This relationship is intricately interwoven into the nature of both art and psychoanalysis.

I think that art is the human perspective on reality; the answer, the reaction of people to it. Art always starts or pushes itself from, refers to, symbolizes or attempts to transform reality. The reality or perception of reality (which is the answer of our consciousness to the existing world) gives a meaning to creativity. Philosophically viewed, art is always an interpretation of the problem of reality-a response, a reaction to reality in which we are forced to live. It is criticism, praise or correction of reality. Art is creating an ideal model of reality or sometimes, on the contrary, its negation.

Every piece of drawing or canvas is "speech," metaphorically transferred from the unconscious mind of the artist. An abstract image of a painting that is far from any direct analogue in reality provokes associations very similar to our experience of poetry and music.

This is exactly what is common between psychoanalysis and art: both represent an ongoing research of states of mind and feelings in relation to their connection to reality.

In art, just like in psychoanalysis, we create a parallel reality, a representational reality, a reality that is not the objective one, and yet we fully participate in it with our real feelings, thoughts and desires-and that makes it even more meaningful, more real than the actual reality. In analysis we transfer feelings, thoughts and desires and create a fantasized world, that of the therapeutic relationship. The analyst and the patient are now two actors playing roles, creating an imaginary relationship that is a real relationship at the same time." - Ira Simidchieva

https://www.irasimidchieva.com/