Inge Gecas: Observations and Reflections, 2019-2022

About

Observations and Reflections, 2019-2022, a solo exhibition of work by Lithuanian-born artist Inge Gecas, will be on view at SLA Art Space from February 12 – 27, 2022. The exhibition features 40 works from Gecas’ new series of staged photographs created over the past three years.

The notions of awareness of and deep empathy with nature and all its beings permeate Inge Gecas’ artistic practice. Working from a background in painting, architecture and graphic design, Gecas experiments with a myriad of materials, both traditional and non-traditional ones—pencils, paints, brushes and inks, digital camera, found objects, and natural light, exploring the collaborations and tensions between the natural and the artistic, the analog and the digital. Gecas embraces botanical materials and looks to uncover and amplify their character, inviting viewers to notice nature’s patterns, forms and textures. She manipulates these objects and fragments by exposing them to light and color pigments, painting and drawing on them, and arranging them on surfaces, seeking to create intimate moments, narratives, and emotions through the photography of staged scenes and compositions and tell the story of survival and resilience. 

Gecas’ visually complex pictures are at once familiar and alien, present and elusive, factual and fictional. Formally precise, with an emphasis on composition, her photographs suggest instability and fluctuation. Her subjects are often on the verge of leaving or taking another form—wilting, shrinking or otherwise transforming—the signs of their coming and going made visible, both beautiful and impermanent. 

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of the artist’s mother (1941-2021). 

Inge Gecas graduated from Vilnius Academy of Art in her hometown of Vilnius, Lithuania. She had two personal exhibitions showing her oil and acrylic paintings and mixed media works on paper. Since moving to New York in 2022, she has studied and worked with print design and digital photography. Gecas uses her experience with all of these techniques with studio tools and digital tools melding seamlessly in her finished art works. She is the winner of the 2021 Collector’s Vision Award from Contemporary Art Curator magazine.