Nava Lubelski

Region: Northeast

My work explores the contradictory activities of spoiling and mending, using a process of hand-stitching over stains, spills and rips. The marks are either found on ruined linens and canvas or are approached after a process of giving vent to the impulse to destroy, tearing holes and spilling inks onto a pristine canvas. The work flirts with an update of Abstract Expressionism, overlaying the predominately male movement in painting with the historically feminine domestic techniques of needlework, as well as juxtaposing expressions of aggression with masochistic patience and sublimation. At the same time the work plays with the feminine and the sexual both through the focus on the graphic form of the traditionally embarrassing "stain" and by adding peek-a-boo, lace-like inlays to the 2D work, which examine the canvas as a screen for the hidden space of wall bound by stretcher bars.