Like Jane Freilicher (1924–2014), and before her, Maria Oakey Dewing (1845–1927), Vera Iliatova is interested in the still life when depicted in unusual ways with challenging perspectives. In this new suite of paintings, Iliatova continues to combine narration and abstraction while expressing a curiosity with still life painting.

For this exhibition, titled For Now, At Once, Iliatova employs the use of flowers as a metaphor for change, anticipation, decay and growth. Iliatova hones in on the psychological intensity of her protagoniststeenage girls on the awkward brink of adolescence- by revealing their idiosyncratic gestures and moods. The flower arrangements, coupled with the theatrical setting of the landscape, interconnect with the melodrama unfolding in each painting, like scenes from a film.

Focused on the interior self, there is a strong sense of emotional duality permeating throughout; these girls fight, console, cry, ruminate, laugh and judge. The ambiguity surrounding the characters conjures a strong sense of poetic association: nature as subjective feeling. The imagery is simultaneously beautiful and menacing. Iliatova perceptively illuminates the complicated passage from adolescence to adulthood that shapes ones identity.

Vera Iliatova received a MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University, CT and a BA from Brandeis University, MA. Iliatova has also undergone studies at Sorbonne University, Paris, France, completed a residency at Skowhegan School of Art, ME, and was a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Nominee in 2009. Recent group exhibitions include 68Projects, Berlin, Germany; Girls’ Club, Miami, FL; and Absent Friends at Monya Rowe Gallery, among others. She will have an upcoming solo exhibition at Sarah Lawrence College, NY in April 2015. Iliatova lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. This is the artists’ fifth solo exhibition at Monya Rowe Gallery.