uPCOMING Event
June 8th and 10th.
1155 6th Ave, NYC (5th and 6th Floor)
As @digianagroup project, @seungjin888 and @momo_x_art collaboration fashion artwork would be shown at @chashama gala in Midtown. Now in DigiAna Studio we are making new costume for show, so excited 💫. Please come by, you can see also enjoy open bar and 200 artists performances!
Purchase tickets from HERE!
new video
In commemoration of artist Roman Kalinovski’s solo exhibition “Studies for an impossible portrait” in DigiAna Studio in NY, Roman and artist Seungjin Lee, Tommy Mintz gathered to discuss topic about “Relation between paint and digital”. Discussion was wide ranging from paint process to digital modernity.
Current Exhibition
“Studies for an
Impossible Portrait”
Solo Exhibition by
Roman Kalinovski
April 7 – May 25, 2023
DigiAna Studio
Hours by appointment.
Email dxagroup@gmail.com to schedule.
DigiAna Studio is pleased to present Studies for an Impossible Portrait, an exhibition of recent paintings by Roman Kalinovski.
Oil paint has long been used to depict the sheen and texture of flesh, with artists using its unique illusionistic properties to heighten the realism of their subject’s presence. Kalinovski takes a different approach in his work: he uses oil paint to depict the flat screen upon which flesh is displayed.
Drawing inspiration from digital and analog video stills, Kalinovski mobilizes the illusionistic qualities of oil paint to depict another illusion: the flat, distorted world of the screen. Pixels become brushstrokes as electronic images are solidified and materialized according to the logic and realism of the screen rather than referencing any deeper reality beyond the surface. The figures, faces, and flesh onscreen aren’t brought into being with paint but, rather, remain remote in the realm of fantasy, frozen under gleaming layers of jewel-like varnish, oil, and resin. Jacques Lacan’s famous adage “il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel 1 ” can be interpreted to mean that any direct connection between individuals is impossible. Instead, desire is always mediated by something, whether by various “partial objects” of the Other (gaze, voice, etc.) or by each partner’s private fantasies. These fantasies and desires aren’t our own: rather, we learn to desire from exposure to media, especially the alluring narratives and images of film and video.
In painting stills from erotic and pornographic movies, Kalinovski depicts the residue of such internal fantasies after they have been externalized and commodified. Splayed across the screen, the fetishized body becomes a machine for the perpetual generation of artificial desire. The scenes and shots Kalinovski paints present the subject as tantalizingly close yet untouchably distant. Whether brushing her teeth, holding her hand against the camera lens, or staring into a camcorder held inches away from her face, her closeness fills the entire frame with a suffocating intimacy. Despite this apparent closeness, the subject — the other — remains distant and is ultimately inaccessible, eternally separated from the viewer under veils of mediation: paint, screen, camera, lens, character, performer, and fantasy. A complete portrait of the other as a human being is an impossibility. In its place is an endless litany of partial simulacra: images of images of images floating onscreen, untethered from material reality.
Roman Kalinovski is an artist, writer, and gallerist. He has a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from Pratt Institute. Kalinovski’s work has been exhibited at spaces across New York and beyond, including Space 776, Galerie Manqué, Anthony Phillip Fine Art, and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. His writing on art, culture, and technology has been featured in Artcritical, Hyperallergic, Art Spiel, Quiet Lunch, and Digitally Downloaded, among other publications. He has presented papers at international conferences including Electronic Literature Organization conferences in Victoria, BC and Montreal, QC, as well as Global Posthuman Symposiums at NYU. Kalinovski is the senior editor of Arcade Project, an online arts and culture zine, and associate director of Arcade Project Curatorial, an art gallery in Bushwick. He lives and works in Brooklyn.
You can also check Review by Stephen Gambello