Tzirel’s recent works are composed of inkjet photographic prints of a mundane, personal nature painted over with oils. The painted layer does not overtly reference or correlate with the photograph below it, however it depicts another moment, similarly quotidian in nature. Elements of the base photograph show through transparent areas of the painting - subtly discernible after longer observation. A still life of flowers or some crumpled napkins might slowly reveal a laptop cord, or a radiator -- the miscellany of life that comes into focus in un-composed moments. The oil painted portion of the work is often related to another moment photographed or remembered. The (D)urational experience of painting in this slow focused way, on top of this image that essentially represents an instant is a balm for the contemporary painter. Perhaps the end result is disruptive or jarring (without moralistic intention) as a reflection of our contemporary embodied moments, what we are photographing and how we ingest images. Contemplating the contemporary dissolution of the single frame, the "moment" captured, and the borders of an image, she explores how "virtual living" dissolves this kind of differentiation or boundary. These works are a process of tentatively teasing out the rupture and break down of visual and personal spaces under the overzealous thumb of digital technologies.
Tzirel Kaminetzky received her BFA from Parsons in 2004 and her MFA from SVA in 2017. Before taking her art-making from kitchen floor to studio she worked as a photojournalist at media companies including Hearst, Newsweek and ABCNews. Her time culling innumerable photos and producing content for diverse brands and audiences has informed her hybrid practice utilizing both paint and photography. She has shown at Williams Center Gallery - Lafayette College (Easton, PA), St. Charles Projects (Baltimore, MD) and The New Yorker Passport to the Arts (New York, NY). She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY with her family.
Mirepoix; 2015
