When the white snow covered the ground for most of winter in her hometown of Kirov, Russia, Sofiya Inger found color in painting.
As the next featured Patio Gallery artist, Inger said that her painting became the color and meaning to her life. Her work, “Searching for Memories,” will open at a reception on Sunday, August 28, 2-4 p.m. and will be on display through October 11.
In describing her show, Inger said:
“It was always easy for me to forget. Names, events, numbers, order of days, insults, faces…
So many times it helped to keep going, to start new days clean, not needing to forgive, or to revenge.
Soft, malleable clouds cover everything…..
In the middle of my life I flew across the ocean.
How to grow into the new soil, new language? How to change everything?
Even the very words to name and describe this world had to be found again, matched, and tested for how they felt on the tongue.
Paintings, and sculptures, images, and forms; all I can touch, see, smell, things made by my hands for all these years-they are becoming my breadcrumbs to follow in the woods, reminders of past moments I cannot otherwise recall.
My mother’s dress, our faces I painted on it, my father’s coat, long and black, with his young eyes I painted on it, my own face, young, and longing, looking back to home never to be.
Women in my family have their memories taken from them, slowly, cruelly.
I do not know my own future for now.”
Inger’s style incorporates human emotion, vulnerability and ties to nature with an eloquent way of incorporating her Russian heritage; with shapes that are reminiscent of Matryoshka, Russian nesting dolls.
In 1991, Inger left her home country and immigrated to the Unites States, first to New York and then to Indiana. She said her pastels and paintings capture the events of her life and the changes she saw throughout her moves.
The swirls and images captured by pastels on canvas transmit Inger’s feelings at the moments she drew them to each person who views the finished painting.
Inspired by painters such as Marc Chagall and Hieronymus Bosch, Inger’s works are painted with an “overflowing heart.” She received her schooling at the Children’s Art School and Kirov Art College in Kirov.
A 2011 Skip McKinney Award winner at the Indianapolis Art Center, Inger exhibits her work across Indiana and surrounding states. For more information on Inger visit www.sofiyaingerart.com.