Intersection: artist statement 2024

I am a disruptor of surfaces and the tensions of the real and the plastic. My multi-media experiments are conscious strategies questioning the boundaries of mediums and my own relationship to techniques, materials, identities, and histories of resistance. Using collage to disrupt the “terrain” both physically and conceptually I make painting environments and intricate relief paintings that together widen the scope of being embodied and living in connection.  My project constructs visual experiences that are intensely tactile: open to physical interaction and play, collaboration, and joy. It is my goal to develop and maintain this as an accessible domain for public celebration. My project, Intersection explores “touch” (the “haptic”) as the essential vehicle for restoration of the embodied self and community. It operates as the assemblage of two primary fields:

  • The Tapestry Paintings are large-scale, double-sided paintings on unstretched muslin heavily interrupted by multiple cuts and collaged gauze. These tapestries create immersive environments bringing together artists, musicians, dancers, storytellers and audience. The environments explore three principles or movements: (1) exile; (2) dislocation; and (3) suture. The paintings act as shelters, costumes and screens and invite robust physical interaction, use, and play.  In this project I deploy performativity and collaboration to deconstruct traditional meanings and procedures around the making, experience, and value of painting.

  • Stretched-linen Paintings: in these paintings I build dense relief surfaces to both reveal and conceal depths. Knotted gauze creates deep groves that feel like scars and sutures. I use the cut line and the drawn line in Sumi ink to interrupt the terrain and reference the body. The semi-transparent layers of gauze dislocate the mark and cause a temporal and physical sense of exile. The paintings are grouped as Seascapes, Snowscapes, and Kukeri, markers of my own migration. (A part of ancient Bulgarian tradition, Kukeri are masked characters clad in animal skins and clusters of bells who dance in reverie and descend upon villages in a cacophony of noise intended to clear the stagnant spirits and open space for rebirth.) 

These two fields are intertwined and co-productive in my investigation of the relationship between creation and destruction, order and disorder, intention and intuition, modalities expressed and perceived through the haptic. It is a practice related to the Kukeri’s role in making space for rebirth through the cacophonous reverie of color, texture, dance, and sound.  And it is a response to Lucio Fontana’s cuts and Juan Miró’s “anti-paintings” of the late 20’s, an investigation of the drawn line and the cut line as having equally productive and destructive potential, acting as both thought and critique. 

Selected exhibition history

Iva Gueorguieva (b. 1974, Bulgaria) received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 2000.

Select Solo Exhibitions

Forthcoming solo exhibition at Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2024). Recent solo exhibitions include GAVLAK Gallery, Palm Beach, FL (2022) Frederic Snitzer, Miami, FL (2016, 2018); Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe, New York, NY (2011, 2012, 2014, 2016); ACME, Los Angeles, CA (2013, 2015); Samson Projects, Boston, MA (2014); Galerie Stefan Roepke, Cologne, Germany (2013); Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, Washington, D.C. (2013); Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2012); Bravin Lee Programs, New York, NY (2011); Stichting Outline, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2008); and Pomona Museum of Art, Claremont, CA (2007).

Select Group Exhibitions

Notable group exhibitions include: Constellations, David Lewis Gallery, NY, NY (2020); Emergency on Plant Earth, UTA Artist Space, LA, LA (2020); The Light Touch, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA (2019); Shaping Color, LA Louver, Los Angeles, CA (2018); Two-person exhibition with Dona Nelson, Sophia Contemporary, London (2018).Variations: Conversations in and around Abstract Painting, curated by Franklin Sirmans, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2014); Making Sense: Rochelle Feinstein, Iva Gueorguieva, Dona Nelson, Deborah Grant, curated by Margaret Miller, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL (2014); Graphicstudio: Uncommon Practice at USF, curated by Jade Dellinger, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL (2014); It’s New/It’s Now: Recent Gifts of Prints and Drawings, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN (2013); Desire, Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, CA (2010); Five from L.A., Galerie Lelong, New York, NY (2010)

Collections

Her work is held in public collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, CA; Art, Design and Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA; and Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA.

Grants

Gueorguieva was a finalist for the Howard Foundation Grant in 2019 and was nominated for the Anonymous is a Woman grant in 2017. She is the recipient of the Orange County Contemporary Art Collectors Fellowship for 2012, the California Community Foundation mid-career fellowship for 2010, and the Pollock-Krasner Grant for 2006. She is 2019 Yaddo fellow and a Hermitage Artist Residency 2020 fellow.