Yari Ostovany with his painting Oracle II
...Pretty is a very dangerous thing versus beauty because sometimes you arrive at something pretty that you could be quite happy with, and some collectors would be quite happy with as well, but something inside is gnawing at you that it is not beautiful, it’s pretty. And then that destroying and rebuilding, that’s also kind of a tricky thing because if you think of it as destroying, that takes you in a different direction but when you step back and look at the longer arc of it, that’s just another step in the evolution of the work. And I always say you can never ruin a painting if you dare to ruin it. If you don't have faith and you get to some place that feels somewhat comfortable, you just stay there, and that I find dangerous. And that’s what Richter is talking about. I actually learned that through Francis Bacon many years ago, if I’m not mistaken, he said that when you get stuck in a painting, it’s usually what you like most in it that’s keeping you, so you have to paint that out. That’s a very difficult thing to do at first because you’re very attached to it. But then you realize it’s not about having a beautiful area in a painting, it’s about having a painting that works as a whole. (From an interview with Yari called Pretty is a Dangerous Thing.)
Peregrine 25
Our gallery will be bursting with Yari's luminous paintings through May 27.