For this exhibition, Vera Iliatova presents a suite of large and small-scale paintings. The title, Any Where Out of The World, is inspired by the Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) poem of the same name in which Baudelaire expresses an inability to find satisfaction in any one location; the fact that a place exists, has a name and is any where in this world renders it mundane by definition. Iliatova’s paintings are analogous to Baudelaire’s sense of displacement and desire for the unreachable.

Acting as a film director, Iliatova `casts’ herself as several characters contained within one painting. Referencing personal experiences and places once lived within each `frame’ or painting, the visual mood fluctuates as the seasons subtlely change from autumn to spring and the locations alternate from Russia to California to New York. Iliatova cinematically romanticizes the landscape of these locations and her past experiences. The paintings tend to unfold in the same way a movie would, but never actually unfolds as it would in reality.

Delicately painted, the narrative is artificially constructed from observation of real characters and places that do not co-exist in actuality; these fragments are spatially collaged together in the painting process. The protagonists’ actions are often uncertain; are they fighting or laughing, are they jovial or melancholy? The ambiguity of these juxtapositions allows for a fantastical and mysterious atmosphere simultaneously exploring sentiments of displacement and satisfaction.