Yevgeniya Baras is interested in the ways that materials transform and layer, the different kinds of problems that materials present. Working with traditional materials such as oil, acrylic, canvas and with found and gifted materials. The layering is symbolic of the layering of personal history, migration, location, home, of readable and encoded text. Translation between languages, speaking numerous languages, fragments of conversations, extracts from books are embedded into the paintings. The paintings are made in relief each other, taking between two and ten years to create. Baras works on multiple paintings at once, slowly evolving landscapes that inform and push against each other. All materials specifically coming from places of importance to the artist, encoded with a set of symbols that are repeated and revisited.

Baras places importance on the framing or ‘squeezing’ of the paintings with hand carved self built wooden frames or other framing devices encasing the burlap or quilt like canvases almost like the punctuation in a conversation.

‘These recurring elements make for paintings that resemble rudimentary landscapes or primitive diagrams that chart passages of time, both seasonal and celestial. Whether landscape or diagram, Baras’ primitive symbols stand in for features that might mean the difference between life and death, meaning and nothingness.’ (David Pagel, LA Times)