Lilia Ana ‘To Remain Awake’ at Lubov
Floating above Chinatown is the gallery Lubov, host of Lilia Ana’s first New York show, To Remain Awake. The show is a series of figurative oil paintings on canvas —a traditional setup rendered unconventionally, which, in many ways, has become the norm, yet remains successful in its aims. The world Ana depicts is uncomfortably tactile and weighted. It’s uncomfortable, skin pinched and peeling, bodies are crumpled, situations are unclear, with a sense of dread.
The images read as snapshots from a panic attack. Moments cut out of life are put on canvas. This is reaffirmed by many of the pieces’ names. Pieces like “22 st, johns pl 11217 thanks marty,” a body splayed out on a tile, arm outstretched, head crushed beneath a microwave, and “i hate la,” depicting a face being struck by an ambiguous appendage provoking curiosity. The specificity of the language used alludes to what’s outside the frame. These are memories of powerlessness and desperation. Not defeat but moments before.
No faces are shown in full. Either cut off by framing or obscured by objects. Figures are often oppressed by objects. Chair, microwaves, shoes. It’s almost an exercise in forniphilia. As if in their submission, they’ve been relegated to a fixture of the floor. You’re the spectator to someone else’s interior world and all the specifics that that entails. The sensation is best exemplified on the small canvas “i look at the wound and see Moscow”. It depicts skin peeling from a little toe. An intimate image of discomfort, hanging flesh. With the name, you’re aware of the eye viewing it, what the toes owner is experiencing. Stinging sensitivity, raw to the touch.
Ana is a Moscow native artist and a recent addition to the milieu of New York. There’s an urge to see this work as artifacts from a transitional period. The work isn’t zeitgeisty in any conscious way, but more a direct expression from a specific time in an artist’s career and life. They’re reflections on inner space, which may have been a source of comfort, morph into pain. Indulging in something painful that may be soothing just by the nature of its familiarity. A security in the memory, despite that memory not being very good. Ana renders her scenes with the elasticity of a dream. The work is visually strong. Not photo realistic but detail oriented. Thought is spent on the creases and the reds in the skin. Points of pressure. Technically reminiscent of someone like Hopper. Decidedly non-cartoony but not in any kind of objective reality either.
To Remain Awake is a show that stands on its own as an expression of specific pain. Ana has a unique perspective, and this New York debut is a strong foot in the door. Ana’s paintings are earnest if not universal. Ana’s attempt to render this interior space is successful in its tactility. The way the flesh feels in these paintings, how the bodies lie. The innocuous everyday objects rendered sources of power. It’s a specific fragment in time, moving forward, it’s interesting to see how time will be reflected moving forward, or if this lens will be abandoned.
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