Yuliya Lanina, Play Me & Dalton Portella, Shark Room Opening Friday, June 27, 6 - 8 p.m.

Yuliya Lanina, Theme and Variations (Still), 10 min. 30 sec. stop motion animation

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Yuliya Lanina, Play Me and Dalton Portella, Shark Room, opening Friday, June 27 from 6 - 8 p.m. with a special piano performance by Andrius Zlabys at 7:00 p.m. The exhibition runs through July 22.

 

Play Me, a multimedia presentation by Russian- born American artist, Yuliya Lanina, consists of paintings, animations and animatronic sculptures of music boxes, each with original characters and accompanying music. Lanina paints and collages fantastical, mostly female characters that come to life through mechanization. Her half human/ half animal creatures and their quirky narratives are deeply rooted in paganism, mysticism and symbolism and are drawn from such disparate influences as Greek mythology and Russian fairy tales. The characters both eschew and embrace predictability, logic and realism, performing in a blasé, carefree and humorous manner. Original music by Yevgeniy Sharlat, with technical development by Theodore Johnson.

                            Dalton Portella, Blue Shark Tale of Woe, water color on paper, 22" x 30"

Dalton Portella, an avid surfer based in Montauk, will present Shark Room, an installation of found objects, surfboard paintings, water colors and oil paintings depicting sharks as formal architectural objects, whose movements inspire the artist's lines. The shark paintings are an ongoing project for Portella, who seeks to highlight the beauty of these silent, endangered animals, and were inspired by a project for the Natural Resources Defense Council, in which old surfboards that would have otherwise ended up in landfills were repurposed as works of art. 

Grammy nominated, Andrius Zlabys, will perform a short solo piano recital at 7:00 p.m. at the gallery. Zlabys has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras, including The New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires. A Lithuanian born pianist-composer, Zlabys has performed at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and was sited as, "one of the most gifted young keyboard artists to emerge in years," by the Chicago Tribune. 

Yuliya Lanina lives and works in Austin,Texas. She has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Her work has been displayed at the Seoul Art Museum (South Korea), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Russia), Ludwig Museum (Germany), SIGGRAPH Asia (Japan), 798 Beijing Biennial (China), Seoul International Media Art Biennial, KunstFilmBienalle (Cologne, Germany) and other venues. Recent solo exhibitions include The Cleveland Institute of Art and The Russian Cultural Center of Houston.

Lanina’s work has been reviewed by many publications, including the ArtReView, NYArts Magazine, Bloomberg News, Art on Air.com (MOMA PS 1), Brooklyn Rail and others. She was named one of the top 10 artists to watch in NYC by Revolt Magazine in 2013.

Dalton Portella, is a photographer, painter, musician and surfer who lives and works in Montauk, NY. He has exhibited extensively on the East End and elsewhere, and was named by PULSE Magazine as an artist VIP in 2011. He has completed many commissions, most recently 10 works for The Roof Bar at the Viceroy Hotel on 57th St.

For more information or images contact Sara Nightingale at sara@saranightingale.com.