Eva Bovenzi, "Present Perfect" reception, Pastine Projects, San Francisco 3/22/11

Hard-edged but lyrical abstractions in acrylic on panel, and collages on Yupo paper mounted on Arches paper at Pastine Projects,360 Langton, San Francisco, until April 23.
Gallery statement:

"I’ve never grown blasé about the fact that a painting can actually summon people to the present moment; it seems like a form of magic”, Eva Bovenzi writes. She titles this exhibition “Present Perfect” in a nod to the capacity of art to bring a viewer to the Now.

Bovenzi’s visual vocabulary is poetic and entirely her own. Her paintings are fresh and original, yet also read as timeless iconic forms. Having studied sources as varied as Spanish manuscript painting, Romanesque and Byzantine frescoes, Tantric images and Native American ceremonial objects, Bovenzi describes herself as “in the tradition of artists who have tried to give visible form to the invisible”. Her work deliberately evades an easy verbal summary, gesturing towards the ineffability of experience.

Alluding to the shapes of shields, sentinels and masks, Bovenzi's images are bold, emphasizing physicality—yet their materiality is countered by luminescent veils of color that seem to expand past the structures that contain them. Constructed with matte, fluorescent and metallic colors, the surfaces of the paintings alternately absorb and reflect light, adding a subtle depth and movement to the work.

Eva Bovenzi’s art simultaneously suggests solid and void, presence and emptiness, stillness and movement. Mysteriously emblematic, the work’s sheer beauty offers the viewer an experience of transcendence, inviting the present to become perfect. — https://www.pastineprojects.com/project-09




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