Elvira Dayel. Door Window Threshold. 2021
When confined in the body - spirit rises higher. When sheltered at home - vision expands. When defined by parameters, art defies constraints in order to create rhythm, bring unity, show contrast, seek new forms. Every thought & decision is in the line work. At times it longs to please the viewer, sometimes dares to anger them. My work is my visual play of interlocking fields.
In the times like these, when we all struggle for air making art is my oxygen. It's the breathing medium in which to exist. It's uncompromising & unapologetic. Life throws curve-balls and poses questions which my art-making tries to address, without ever fully answering them. It usually points me in a direction, gives a thread to follow.
In my work it is usually the urban landscape that is deconstructed, flattened and re-assembled. My vision of the world wants to be all-encompassing. I like to look at the world globally yet deal with it specifically through figures & current issues. My interest lies in perceiving our environment as a construct, where my re-invented landscape becomes a new reality. Each piece is its own universe - a macro or a microcosm, it is reduced, calm, eerie & left alone. This project is a work in progress. It is conceived now, during the turbulent times of social unrest, the world-wide covid-19 epidemic, and the January 6th, 2020 attempt at insurrection and subversion of the current democratic election process in this country. This project offers three main components such as a door (in a way of an allusion to one via the installed door handle), window (integral part of the architecture of the space), threshold (lack of the architectural threshold, this one offers a number of suspended, rotating garlands.) Addressing the crises of over-prescribed medication, pharmaceuticals are hung on the pill garlands. There are a number of garlands which display newspaper clippings & collages about the BLM protests, the January 6th insurrection, California wildfires, etc. Collages incorporate beautiful photography of the local San Francisco artist Sharon Beals, who donated her photo prints to me. The latter are mainly photographs of “modern bird’s nests” which besides twigs and leaves many a time incorporate urban debris such as ribbons, string, building insulation and other elements.
M a d e i n U S A , b o r n i n U S S R / ARTiST BIOGRAPHY /
Elvira Dayel was born & raised in Ukraine, former Soviet Union. With her family she immigrated to the United States as refugees in the mid-1990’s, at the time of arrival the artist was 15 years old. The Dayel family first came to Los Angeles. In her education Elvira pursued career as an artist while initially obtaining two bachelor degrees: one in Fine Arts and another one in Biological Sciences from UCI; further Dayel received Master’s Degree in Architecture from UCLASchool of Architecture and Urban Design. In 2004 Elvira relocated to San Francisco Bay Area, where she currently lives, creates & works.
Two exhibitions currently on view :
the-insideout.org , Door Window Threshold, here - 2021.10.04 - 2021.01.07
STROMA Gallery, group exhibition (7 artists), 989 Lincoln st., Benicia, CA - 2021.09.25 - 11.06
Dayel has exhibited in California and nationally: STROMA Gallery, Benicia, CA; Counter Pulse, San Francisco, CA; monca, Museum of North American Art, Chico, CA; NUMU, New Museum of Los Gatos; an.a.log gallery, San Francisco; Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA; Maturango Museum Art Gallery, Ridgecrest, CA; Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, Marietta, GA; N.A.W.A. Gallery, NY, NY; San Francisco Zen Center, CA; Caldwell Gallery, San Mateo, CA; Long Beach Island Foundation of Arts & Sciences, Loveladies, NJ; Lincoln Center Art Gallery, City of Fort Collins, CO; LACDA, Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts, Los Angeles, CA; Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA; works SJ gallery, San Jose, CA; SOMA Arts, Ramp Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Storefront Gallery, 49 Geary, San Francisco, CA; Oliver Hawke Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Dzine Gallery, San Francisco, CA.