Twilights
Alexandra Rozenman + Lior Neiger
October 5-30, 2022
SoWa First Friday Art Walk: Friday, October 7 | 5:00–8:00 PM
Closing Reception: Sunday, October 30 | 2:30–4:00 PM
“Twilights” features mixed media works by Lior Neiger and paintings by Alexandra Rozenman. Reflected here is the artists’ search for meaning and identity in the “in-between” and their longing for hope in times of diminishing light. The artists have traveled through time and across continents—Neiger is originally from Israel and Rozenman from the former Soviet Union. Like the interplay of light and dark in twilight, their journeys point to the question of what is next on the horizon. For Neiger, this is reflected in his evolving artistic processes, and, for Rozenman, in her subject matter. The exhibition, rich with invention in its imagery, juxtapositions, and uses of materials, grapples with darkness and, ultimately, foreshadows hope.
Waiting for Cookie Monster on a Half of the Moon
Alexandra Rozenman’s narrative about identity, search for belonging, and journeying to a foreign land forms the core of her work. She says, “my approach to beauty and wonder came with me from Russia and has kept playing a big role. I am always working with it or against it.” Her paintings tell stories and invite viewers into her world of images, symbols, historical events, and the lives and work of famous artists. Rozenman’s work touches in personal ways on issues of artistic influence and dialogue, emulation and creativity, and continuity and discontinuity in contemporary art. She shows us how we are all part of a larger story. In her most recent work, mainly done after the invasion of Ukraine, Rozenman uses trauma (e.g., floods, fires, emptiness) as subject matter, asking the viewer to think about the meaning of even the darkest things around us.
Rozenman was born in Moscow and emigrated to the U.S. in 1989. She was classically trained in the Soviet art academy and with well-known artists from Moscow’s underground movement. She lived in New York City in the 90s and was part of what later became Artists Alliance Inc. on the Lower East Side. Rozenman holds a BFA in Painting from SUNY and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. She has studied with artists Gerry Bergstein and Robert Ferrandini. Her paintings and drawings blend the styles and symbols of folk art, illustration, Russian Underground Conceptualism, and Jewish Art. Rozenman exhibits nationally and internationally at venues that have included Lichtundfire Gallery in New York, Trustman Art Gallery at Simmons University, Hudson Gallery in Gloucester, MA, Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, CT, French Cultural Center of Boston, The Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery in Washington, DC, Gallery 360 in Minneapolis, MN, The Painting Center in New York, and Moscow Center of Contemporary Art. Rozenman was a MacDowell Fellow in 2006. She is Gallery Coordinator at Brickbottom Gallery and is a Core Member of Fountain Street.
Eye (Closed)
Lior Neiger : “we create from the shadows.” As Leonard Cohen famously noted, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Neiger’s new body of work resonates with and embodies this lyric. In many of his previous works, he strove for perfection; but the experience of the pandemic with its global and personal repercussions taught him to be open to the broken and the accidental. Disposable materials that aided the creation of his realistic paintings (e.g., masking tape) are now adding dimensionality to Neiger’s drawings. Light, its changing source, and the shadows it casts have been a constant theme. In his new work, Neiger explores light and twilight from within, without relying on observation.
Neiger is a graduate of the fine arts department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. He moved to Boston in 2002, where he completed his MFA studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. In 2003, he received a grant for his studies from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Neiger’s works include paintings, drawings, and video. His work has been exhibited in the U.S. and internationally, including at Boston Center for the Arts, Exit Art in New York, AREA CODE Art Fair (online), The Jewish Museum in Budapest, The Drawing Biennale in Jerusalem, and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. Neiger is a Core Member of Fountain Street.
