NICOLE FIACCO GALLERY
506 Warren Street
June/July 2007
Altered States
Michal Bachi + Cynthia Greig
The Nicole Fiacco Gallery is pleased to announce Altered States, a two woman exhibition that introduces the work of Israeli painter Michal Bachi and American photographer Cynthia Greig. Bachi’s ethereal paintings and works on paper suggest an altered state of mind while Greig’s photographs use staged compositions that play with viewer’s perceptions of reality.
Michal Bachi’s paintings and works on paper are painterly and fresh, with sensual lines that flicker and snake among her intimate compositions. The viewer is made to feel voyeuristic, experiencing the subject’s humor, sadness, pride, sensuality and vulnerability. The artist states: “I’m looking for small but complex human situations, like people that are present, but are looking far away, the borderline between fun and danger, duality of happiness and sadness, or private moments being watched. Many images contain two people “glued” together: They may be a couple, or twins, or even two sides of the same person.” Bachi taps into that point of departure between opposing psychological states of mind and the dualities that can exist within the same state of mind.
Contrasting Bachi’s soulful paintings are photographs from Cynthia Greig’s “Representations” series. Greig blurs the line between drawing and photography with her innovative process of picture-making which references Dadaism, conceptual art, and still life. Greig’s images involve installation and object revision, in addition to her deadpan camerawork. Greig’s photographs imply that all reality is perceived rather than fixed stating that “My work is about subversion—subverting conventional ways of representing and categorizing … I’m interested in creating images that unite what appear to be opposites, to throw assumptions off-guard and thwart passive viewing.”
Michal Bachi (b.1962, Jerusalem; lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel) Studied at Brera, Accademia di Belle arti in Milan, Italy and received her B.F.A from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in 1988. In 1989 Bachi went on to study Italian Literature and Philosophy at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Bachi has exhibited extensively in Tel Aviv at venues including the Ein Harod Art Museum, the Tel Aviv museum, the Haifa Museum and was the recipient of several awards including from the America-Israel cultural foundation for young artists and theCreation Encouragement Award, given by the Ministry of Sceince, Culture & Sports. In 2003, Bachi’s work was included in Contemporary Works from Private Israeli Collections at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida.
Cynthia Greig (American b. 1959; lives and works Detriot, Michigan) received her M.F.A. in 1995 from the University of Michigan School of Art + Design. Greig has exhibited her photographs internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Representations at San Fransico Camerawork and Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2007, Greig will be included in “Artists Alter Natural Schemes” at SUNY Brockport’s Tower Gallery and the “Forgeries” show in London, Ontario.
