By Naomi Sternstein
Recent paintings by West Village resident (and longtime WestView News reader) Aliza Sternstein will be on view beginning this month at Olympia Gallery on the Lower East Side as part of the artist’s first solo exhibition, entitled Don’t Move Stones.
Sternstein’s paintings present a bold and dreamy play with layers and transparency, filled with symbols and gestures in a delicate consideration of both the ephemeral and the preserved. She builds the canvases with layers upon layers of gesso to create surfaces that are so absorbent, they maintain the history of knocks, fingerprints, and wipeouts that permeate across the paintings.
Sentimental symbols such as hearts and flowers are the subjects of many of these paintings, that prompt us to reconsider the joyful and energetic nature of such symbols and wonder why they were ever relegated to the category of “trite” or “childish.” The artist makes her own stencils, which she uses to repeat these shapes and block out areas.
This show’s title, Don’t Move Stones, an allusion to Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho’s fragment 145, not only encourages us to embrace what we find already laid before us, but also welcomes us to imagine the pauses dancing on the edge of the shapes and symbols.
The exhibit will run from December 11th through January 15th. WestView readers are invited to the opening reception on Saturday, December 11th at 6:00 p.m.
