OHT Gallery Boston

Previous Exhibits

Spilled Milk

Nava Lubelski

October 5 - 27, 2007
Reception: Friday, October 5, 5:30-7:30pm

O·H+T Gallery is pleased to present Spilled Milk, an exhibition of new stained and stitched works by Nava Lubelski.

Looking to discarded and spoiled scraps of linens and canvas to begin her work, Nava Lubelski creates embroidered paintings sewn with a compulsive hand. If she is unable to find a suitable pre-stained piece of fabric, Lubelski vents her "impulse to destroy" and makes her own. Her new work focuses more directly on the clash between two contradictory activities: the patient, controlled act of mending and the aggressive, possibly masochistic act that was responsible for the damage in the first place.

In That Summer, two gaping holes, one edged in white the other in black, mar already stained red fabric to suggest the occurrence of a prior act of violence. Yet the piece is visually pleasing, even soothing. It would be difficult not to respond to the beautifully embroidered shapes or the way a canvas stretcher can be seen through an opening covered with web-like tatting. Like CSI meets Emily Dickinson, this work evokes dueling gut level responses while engaging the eye and the intellect.

Nava Lubelski is a New York artist who has relocated to Ashville, North Carolina. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, most recently at the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY and the Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY. Her numerous residencies include the CUE Art Foundation and the Space Program at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation. Lubelski was the film/video art director for the documentary film Capturing the Friedmans, directed by Andrew Jarecki. Her book, Starving Artist’s Way, was published by Three Rivers Press in 2004. This is Nava Lubelski’s second one-person exhibition at O·H+T Gallery.