PHAUXSHOW

Jana Gouchev is an artist and art critic in Manhattan. It is clear from her work that Gouchev approaches art as a powerful agent of change. Her paintings, often of a delicately seductive nature, deliver a biting critique of the overall state of society.

From floating red arches, clusters of dried leaves, and canvas made to look like layered stone, Gouchev’s paintings have a humor and feistiness rarely found in art today.

Maintaining that all her work is a reaction to reality, Gouchev’s compositions are actively improvisational. Her art introduces irreverence and, at times, sexual innuendo by punctuating ragged blocks of layered color with darting lines, splatters of ink spread like dance steps, and quasi signs echoing street art.

Jana Gouchev is the founder and editor-in-chief of Notion, the visual arts and fashion magazine, and an editorial manager at The New York Times.

Street Series:

This series focuses on the imperfections of an urban landscape. The artist reveals her experiences of living in Sofia, Bulgaria, and New York City by displaying a concern for the despoliation of both cities by the imposition of boundaries—boundaries set by a former communist government in one city and the silent social borders present in the other.

One piece, titled “Weakness” (2008), depicts a skyline filled with buildings that seem to be fighting for space, much like humans fight to gain or keep their positions, exploiting the weaknesses of others. Thinner black borders in this painting resemble fragile limbs, suggesting the delicate barrier between love and hate. White lines are scattered over the buildings, symbolizing the anxiety and constant electricity in our lives.

Another piece, “Flirting Between Lost & Found” (2008), reveals fewer structures but on a larger scale. The buildings in this piece have much heavier borders, insinuating that these are the thicker-skinned players that won the war in “Weakness.”

Texture prevails in “The Plunge” (2007), the purple cathedral top inflected by the white of breaking light, and the black of malevolence to the left touched by the red glow of a trust in the self.

What this series conveys, apart from its assertive message, is a balance between passion and restraint.

Jana’s website

Jana’s work on Phauxshow