APRIL 22 – JUNE 5, 2024

Opening Reception and Artist Talk
Monday, April 22, 5 – 7 PM

SOCO Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Farfinds, a solo exhibition by artist Yevgeniya Baras featuring sixteen new paintings of various sizes. The gallery will host a public opening reception with the artist on Monday, April 22nd from 5 - 7 PM. This will be the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.

For Baras, a body of work is reminiscent of a particular place or grouping of places. The artist makes drawings or records of her encounters within a city or region to use as inspiration for her compositions. Her ideas, thoughts, and feelings from these spaces flood her creative process and are revealed in a series of paintings that encapsulate those special experiences. 

In Farfinds, Baras combines imagery from disparate and “far” locations that are all connected by her unique memories and perspective. With careful thought and placement of paint and mixed materials, each canvas becomes a treasure in its own way–a souvenir from her excursions that she works on for many years at a time, with each layer becoming another deeply personal touch.

This exhibition focuses on landscapes, with some of her compositions resembling topographical maps and geographic features, while others suggest foliage, bodies of water, or found objects in nature like sticks or stones. Baras describes her working method as “looking out in order to then return to the studio and go inward.” Her artistic search for subject matter is constant, always thinking about elements of place, location, home, and movement. 

Working with oil and mixed media on burlap and linen, Baras’ materials further her exploration of landscapes. Wood and textiles are commonly used in her paintings, frequently creating built up ridges. Her stretched burlap sometimes folds and bunches along the sides of her canvases–pushing outside of the traditional rectangular-shape. Baras’ painting practice shares many similarities with craft and sculpture as she often crochets, sews, and carves into her work.

In Untitled, a 20 x 16 inch oil and wood painting on linen, Baras creates thick outlines with  bold color choices.  Her interest in abstraction is clear, with common shapes appearing in a multitude of the works in the exhibition. A large orange form in the center of the canvas is symbolic of a leaf or mountain, or even a crackling flame. Baras’ use of line and form toys with her audience, allowing her own experiences to be realized anew.

Yevgeniya Baras (B. Syzran, former Soviet Union)

Yevgeniya Baras (b. Syzran, former Soviet Union) is an artist based in New York. She is represented by Sargent's Daughters, (New York, NY) and The Landing, Los Angeles, CA) and has exhibited her work at galleries including White Columns (New York, NY); Nicelle Beauchene (New York, NY); Reyes Finn Gallery (Detroit, MI); Gavin Brown Enterprise (New York, NY); Inman Gallery (Houston, TX); Mother Gallery (New York, NY); Sperone Westwater Gallery (New York, NY); Thomas Erben Gallery (New York, NY) The Pit (Los Angeles, CA); Sargent’s Daughters (New York, NY); The Landing (Los Angeles, CA) as well as internationally including NBB Gallery (Berlin, Germany); Julien Cadet Gallery (Paris, France); Station Gallery (Sydney, Australia).

Yevgeniya is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner grant in 2023 and 2018. Baras was named Senior Fulbright Scholar for 2022/2023. She was a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2021 and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. Baras was selected for the Chinati Foundation Residency in 2018 and the Yaddo Residency in 2017. She received the Artadia Prize and was selected for the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program and the MacDowell Colony residency in 2015. In 2014, she was named a recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Emerging Artist Prize. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, LA Times, ArtForum, The New York Review of Books, and Art in America.

Baras co-founded and co-curated Regina Rex Gallery in New York’s Lower East Side (2010-2018). Baras holds a BA in Psychology and Fine Arts and an MA in Education from the University of Pennsylvania (2003) and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007).