ONLINE Course - via Zoom

Day of the week: Monday

Time: 6:00-9:00 pm (EST) / 3:00-6:00 pm (PST)

Length: 3 hrs.

8 Weeks of Classes: June 3, June 10, June 17, June 24, July 1, July 8, July 15, July 22

About This Course

Material Abstraction is a project based painting intensive created and led by Yevgeniya Baras. Each artist will be given specific prompts which will lead to the generation of new artworks. Prompts encourage visual and personal research in preparation for making. Technical exploration, perception, development of ideas, intuition, invention, representation and communication are at the core of this class.  We will have a chance to explore different ways of working with acrylic paint and expand on the idea of what painting is by integrating alternative painting materials.

An important part of this class is embracing curiosity and giving yourself permission to travel to unexpected places rather than merely relying on skills and experiences which are part of you already. We will engage in critique, both one on one and in a group setting.

Guest Speakers

Artists in this class will:

• Produce a number of experimental artwork pieces

• Learn about methods of researching towards abstraction 

• Hear lectures by 4 artists who deal with materiality in abstraction

• Have artwork critiqued by at least one of the guest speaking artists

• Work with non traditional materials in painting

• Create work that is abstract, material, and specific to you

Faculty Bio

Yevgeniya Baras is an artist working in New York. She has exhibited her work at galleries including White Columns, NY; Reyes Finn Gallery, Detroit; Gavin Brown Enterprise, NY; Nicelle Beauchene, NY; Mother Gallery, NY; Inman Gallery, Houston; Sperone Westwater Gallery, NY; Thomas Erben Gallery, NY; the Pit, LA as well as internationally including NBB Gallery, Berlin; Julien Cadet Gallery, Paris; Station Gallery, Sydney. She is represented by the Landing Gallery in LA and Sargent’s Daughters in NY.

Yevgeniya is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner grant in 2023 and 2018. Yevgeniya was named Senior Fulbright Scholar for 2022/2023. She was a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2021, Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.

Yevgeniya 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. 

Yevgeniya co-founded and co-curated Regina Rex Gallery on the Lower East Side of NY (2010-2018).

Yevgeniya holds a BA in Psychology and Fine Arts and an MS in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.