Turovsky's Flights of Fancy
There's
movement within each scene and in the paint itself, which swirls and flows and
animates the canvas.
|
|
|
by Karen Rene Merkle |
Most of us would be happy enough to have one creative outlet for expression.
How fair is it that Natasha Turovsky has at least two?
A couple of weeks ago, Turovsky the violinist played Mercyhurst College's Mary
D'Angelo Center as a member of I Musici de Montreal, a Canadian chamber orchestra
founded by her father, Yuli, and also featuring her mother, Eleanora, as
chambermistress.
In conjunction with that concert, an exhibit of works by Turovsky the painter
opened at the adjacent
The core of the display is 15 works inspired by Mussorgsky's musical
masterpiece, "Pictures at an Exhibition." During the concert, the
artworks were displayed on a screen as the orchestra played. Now
that the concert is over, however, these artworks -- and some 25 other Turovsky
paintings in the show -- more than stand on their own.
They are colorful, richly crafted flights of fancy, Daliesque exercises in the
limitless possibilities of imagination.
"I became a surrealist at age 3,"Turovsky writes in her biography.
She and her mother would make up stories -- the more ridiculous, the better --
and the silliness appealed to the budding artist.
"Being more attracted to absurdity than normality,
and more to dreams than reality, I always considered myself a surrealist,"
she said.
Whether working in oils or creating glicee prints on canvas, Turovsky's works
have a timeless, old-world look and feel. Her figures are often faceless, but
that doesn't keep them from having bold, identifiable personalities. The
palette she employs is deep and golden, with shades of red and amber
predominating. There's movement within each scene and in the paint itself,
which swirls and flows and animates the canvas.
Turovsky's confident styleworks well when the subject matter is as fantastic
and dreamlike as it is here. A fun parlor game would be to write your own fairy
tales based on the images she's presented here.
Eggs with legs dance around in the clever "Ballet of the Unhatched
Chicks." The view is from the stage in "A Night at the Opera,"
and in the audience are a court jester, a little girl with a doll, and a horse.
Bells fill the air around the "Great Gate of Kiev" in two different
paintings, each of which depicts the edifice as almost a mythical stone castle.
Turovsky's most intriguing contention regards the sometimes fragile barrier
between what is real and what isn't.
"Since life is full of absurdities," she said, "I think I could
consider myself a realist. Surrealism is merely another name for realism."
In subscribing to the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction theory, the artist is
suggesting that some of the madness, inanities, and atrocities occurring in the
real world make the surreal plane seem almost tame and even believable in
comparison. If there is some other dimension where her visions are the reality,
it would be worth the journey.
The same can be said for the 10 pieces included in the exhibit that were
painted by Turovsky's mother, Eleanora. The difference is that these are more
firmly grounded in this realm, if not exactly in this time.
Her paintings present a
Mom's palette is more vernal, with the brighter colors of spring. But like
daughter, her works can be as sweeping as a symphony or as intimate as an
etude. Both know how to make their paintbrushes, as well as their instruments,
sing.
'Pictures at an Exhibition' by Natasha Turovsky, featuring selected works by
Eleanora Turovsky, continues through Nov. 11 at
Karen Rene Merkle is a freelance writer living in Wattsburg. She writes on art
and dance regularly for Showcase.