Irina Kupyrova’s leisurely narratives take place on the borderline between the indoors and the outdoors, in the frame of the suggested window. The paint is lively and textured, but the resulting arrangements are unexpectedly calm, confident in their final appearance, but hinting of a lengthy decision-making and many rejected options.
Women are often central to the work: never engaged, always contemplative, wearing their garments with casual neglect. They are confident but distant in their Modigliani-like stylization – the essence of feminine elegance synthesized into the painterly explorations of line and colour. There is an air of untroubled waiting about them that creates this particular state of stillness, allowing the artist to arrange the model’s long slim limbs according her aesthetic needs.
Recent work shows the artist’s newfound interest in still life, rejoicing in her studio’s proximity to the city’s green oasis. Irina Kupyrova’s still lives are seasonal, lush, exuberant; using colour to test the border between three- and two-dimensions. They are deliberately ornamental, with a pattern-like quality reminiscent of William Morris and 90s Versace designs, but with a careful consideration for form and texture that leaves no doubt that the artist was working from life.
Irina’s experience of the colour is sensual, almost physical – her staged, but observant compositions pick on the differences in tone between artificial and natural light, indoors and outdoors, conveying with a couple of side-to-side colour juxtapositions a rich experience of the impressionistic space.