reviews > Portland, ME

Irina Alexandrovna Skornyakova
Irina Alexandrovna Skornyakova

10/1/10 6:30PM

What does it mean to be hidden in plain sight? What must it feel like? How does it look? In a series of two-dimensional works, Irina Alexandrovna Skornyakova has figured out a means of representing this seemingly unrepresentable situation. She does this through the subtle manipulation of tapestry and graphite, handmade paper and fire. She does it through words that are invisible from one viewing position but glowing from another. These are the words: HERE I AM. EXHALE. TENDERNESS. FUTURE TENSE. They are written on four separate pieces, set in four different landscapes, from sea to field. All are moody and poetic on their own and in the interplay between the suggested terrain and the words that float in and out of being on their surface. Here I am, floating out to sea, a glowing squall looming on the horizon. Exhale, take a breath, finally, for you are at the shore, and no one else is here to see. Tenderness, in the grass, for you if you lie here, gently, in the breeze. The future is tense, isn’t it—that cloud in the distance could well be a boulder, about to fall. These are just suggestions, of course, imagined as Skornyakova’s hidden words come in and out of focus in front of my eyes. See them appear and disappear before your own.

—Lori Waxman