Aloe 2017

Curator: This work is entitled *Aloe* and it was created in 2017 by Lucy Ivanova, utilizing a mixed-media approach dominated by acrylic paint. Editor: Immediately, the unapologetic use of pink hits you—a hyper-saturated ground for the plant forms. It's almost aggressively cheerful. Curator: The intensity certainly grabs your attention. Looking closer, the brushstrokes are quite expressive, almost frenetic in places, hinting at neo-expressionist and fauvist approaches. Editor: Do you think this work uses an interplay between raw canvas and very deliberate marks to deconstruct ideas around painting's surface qualities, perhaps inviting considerations about its medium and construction? Curator: To that end, you can notice it moves beyond strict representation; the aloe becomes a vehicle for exploring color relationships and the dynamics of form and ground. Consider its engagement with Modernism too. It eschews traditional notions of perspective, instead opting for a flattened pictorial space. Editor: Speaking of perspective, the composition feels intentionally unbalanced. That solid, earthy section to the right—a jarring contrast. How does this inform her larger artistic output and position in today’s sociopolitical dialogue on art? Curator: Lucy Ivanova is creating work at a time when figuration is experiencing a powerful resurgence within abstraction—with *Aloe* as evidence of how we interpret and translate our spaces into new perspectives in artistic visual languages. We can certainly recognize it for that! Editor: A bold and disruptive interpretation of something commonplace—definitely memorable. Curator: Absolutely; through bold execution of the visual construction, the composition achieves impact.