I’m loving some of the new artists that gallery owner/curator Marcus Wise is featuring these days. Coming soon, Glow Gallery will be exhibiting the first solo show of Buffalo State College Senior, Zhenya Doolan. Zhenya’s paintings and prints were inspired by the life that the artist led, as a young boy, when he was orphaned shortly after the fall of Communist Russia. You can see the anguish and hope that Zhenya incorporates into his works, with bold woodcut-style propaganda imagery. Zhenya manages to tell his story in an artistic light that shows his transition from a terrorized orphan boy to a emblazoned master of his own domain.
“Before all of this I was an orphan, left by my biological mother in the aftermath of a fallen Communist Russia,” writes Zhenya. “I had experienced and seen things that no child ever should have been exposed to. Being emotionally scarred it’s been difficult to discuss the events of my early childhood without getting upset. By sharing these memories and experiences through my artwork and imagination I want to unveil my previously undisclosed past. Sharing these expressions will help to bring closure on a painful period of my life so I can finally move on. Being adopted has changed my life forever and I have always been thankful for my new family, both immediate and extended.”
Life as a Russian Orphan: Prints & Paintings by Zhenya Doolan
Glow Gallery | 224 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY 14201
Friday, May 9, 2014, 6pm-10pm