CONNECTION THROUGH EXPLORATION
Asia Popinska – Featured Artist for this year’s ART ALL DAY / CICLOVIA event.
September 18 – October 9, 2021
CONNECTION THROUGH EXPLORATION is a solo exhibition of works by artist, Asia Popinska, and is part of the ART ALL DAY / CICLOVIA event.
Asia, known for her photographic works, will be displaying her paintings for the first time at ARTWORKS, along with some new photographic works. She has been a part of the local art scene for a few years, showing in many group exhibitions at ARTWORKS. This will be her first solo exhibition in our gallery.
Artist Statement
When I was asked to be a part of this show, I felt elated but also a bit nervous. The question of how I could combine my thematically scattered photography with paintings that are equally incohesive in theme was a challenging one. Two mediums, both directionless, and a whole lotta prayers that my experimentation would, at some point, find the perfect intersection between the two. I succeeded. I started noticing patterns I liked, and what were seemingly aberrant shades here and swirls there started to come together like colors and shapes in a kaleidoscope, finding form and function.
My artistic expression of the world around me is my effort to help others see things in a more primal, intuitive, and imaginative way. Sure, there is diversity in art, but there is also diversity in perception. My approach to my art is to evoke a response that isn’t easily parsed by our constructed perceptions. I want people to feel my art with the biggest part of themselves. — The part that goes beyond gender, occupation, prejudices, and beliefs. It’s that same element that made us look through kaleidoscopes as kids, where we often found that words were inadequate in explaining what drew us to those toys in the first place.
– Asia Popinska
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Asia Popinska – An Artist of Spirit and Vision
Specializing in Photography, Painting and Emotional Intuition
Works Available for Exhibition, Commission and Special Order
Asia Popinska is a native of Poland who received her first camera at age nine as a Communion gift. Toting around the Soviet-Era Smena on nature excursions with her father, the self-taught photographer learned to develop the prints in a home darkroom, honing the essentials of the craft.
As an adult, she became a trained physiotherapist, and immigrated to the United States in 1996 where she raised a family and eventually found her way back to photography. A catalyst for pursuing photography again was the end of a twenty-year marriage in 2011, and that quickly led to exhibition opportunities ranging from group shows at the Philadelphia Sketch Club and Pennsylvania Center for Photography to solo shows at Trenton Social and Artworks in Trenton. A practitioner of Buddhist Philosophy who is guided by altruism and sensitivity, she resides in Mercer County where the natural beauty and constructed spaces of her regional environment provide an abundance of inspiration and curiosity.
Artist Statement
“I think I was a photographer even before I got my first camera. I’ve always seen the world in pictures, colors, patterns, and movement; in both light and darkness. I see beauty in the unique and imperfect. When people comment on my photos as being evocative, I take it as the biggest compliment since I express my desires, feelings, passions and sorrows through my images.”
Imaging: Sometimes, I’m so immersed in a moment that I will find myself in some awkward position – crouched down, leg out, neck craned, leaning into something that has captured my attention. Photography gets me to slow down, embrace my senses, follow threads, and find stories that begin to take shape behind the lens. I consider myself an intuitive and emotional photographer, so observing and reacting to the patterns, textures, repetitions, and details is where the imagery first emerges, but that is not where the relationship ends.
Editing: I think of it in terms of a relationship because I tend to group my images within a larger body of work. There are narratives, similarities, affinities, and contrasts that determine which images become the final choices in a project, a series, or an afternoon adventure. Curating these selections is as much a part of the overall work as the initial image making and the printing, framing, and exhibiting that come after it.
Printing: The decision to make a print is a precious one. Because so much of the photography we see today is pixels behind plastic, I want to bring a higher quality of material sensuality and contemplation to my physical prints. To do this, I work with a one of the best printing services in the area which uses the highest museum quality paper such as Hahnemuhle Museum Etching or Canson Infinity Platine Fibre Rag to create prints that enhance the silent language of the image and preserve it over time.
Framing: Recently, I have had the opportunity to see how my work looks behind non-reflective, UV protected glass and it has been a real lesson in how decisions like printing and framing can make such a big impact on the work. For an artist like myself, the fewer obstacles between the viewer and the image are going to increase the capacity for appreciation and enhance its integrity, and that is what I am aiming for.
Exhibiting: And then it ends with a public hanging. After germinating, nurturing, and refining the work, making decisions about what to submit or include in a show – or my website or Instagram, can be just as much a part of the intuitive and emotional process as the initial image making. But exhibiting is also one of the most challenging parts because you must be publicly vulnerable for people to connect with your work. And wrapped up in that is also a lot of list making, categorizing, and marketing that doesn’t flow with my natural inclinations as an artist.
In Summary: There is so much more to the process of bringing an image to life than meets the eye. On one hand, each individual piece reflects a lifetime of my personal history, experience, and skill as I react to a moment, while at the same time, each individual piece stands on its own with endless capacity for interpretation. That is why sometimes the less said the better. It lets people sort out what moves them and creates space for evocative feelings and emotions to emerge. Because you can never really form an intimate relationship with rust or moss if you don’t take the time to slow down.
CV
Upcoming:
New Jersey Photography Forum (Watchung Arts Center), Juried Photography Exhibit, 2021
Artworks (Trenton, NJ) Connection through Exploration, *Solo Show, 2021
Past:
The Ellarslie Open, (Trenton, NJ), Juried Exhibition, 2021
NJ Art Annual at Morris Museum (Morristown NJ), Dissonance, 2020
Philadelphia Sketch Club Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA), The Art of Flower, 2019
Philadelphia Sketch Club Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA), PHOTOgraphy, 2019 *Juror’s Award
Pennsylvania Center for Photography Doylestown Pa The Odyssey, 2019
Pennsylvania Center for Photography (Doylestown, PA), Transformations, 2019
The Arts Council of Princeton (Princeton, NJ), Pinot to Picasso, 2019, 2018
Trenton Social (Trenton, NJ), *Solo Exhibition, 2018
Common Threads, (Hopewell Vineyards, Hopewell, NJ) Group Exhibition, 2017
Mercer County Photography ( Pennington, NJ), Group Exhibition, 2017 *Purchase Award and Honorable Mention
Media:
Princeton Magazine Photo Contests, 2019 *First Place: Wildlife and Nature
The Art of Quarantine: A Series by US1 Newspaper (Princeton, NJ) LINK TO ARTICLE