Elena Peteva: ASH

Ash explores individual, social, and global states through allegorical representation. The subject functions as a subtle but charged signifier in the creation of meaning – whether it is a drawing of a box with black smoke coming out of it, hands about to reach into a dark tangle or an installation of a mound of ash/charcoal. I seek to create works that go beyond the surface and draw in the viewer to slow down, look closer, decode and reflect.

“In these drawings and installations, and essentially in all my work I am after the construction of layered meaning through the concept, image, formal choices, and process. My interest lies in the iconographic and the formal narratives, and their cognitive and emotive import and power. Constructing and decontextualizing the image and navigating the representational and emotive potential of the formal elements are things I consider essential in my work. My drawings are created from a combination of direct observation, photo reference, memory, and imagination. The process involves a slow, layered development of the drawing, simultaneously laborious and meditative. I continue to draw until the image reaches the visual, psychological, and emotive depth I am after. My installations are another form of drawing but in three dimensions with a physical presence that engages in a dialogue with the two-dimensional drawings and the viewer in their shared space. I don’t think of them as separate bodies of work but as the parts of one whole, while they can also exist on their own.”

– Elena Peteva

For any questions, please contact Jonathan Duff at jduff@adelphi.edu