The title Entropvisions is in homage to my mother, the poet and art critic, Harriet Zinnes. In 1990 New Directions published a collection of her poems titled Entropisms, a word she made-up combining entropy - the tendency toward disorder - and tropism - the growth towards or away from a stimulus. Similarly, my short reviews combine entropy and tropism by suggesting growth towards a vision of art from the chaos of the art world. Through the back door, my title also pays homage to my physicist father, Irving Zinnes, whose long discussions with my mom got her thinking about entropy and tropism in the first place.
Aparna Sarka at Tappeto Volante Projects
2023.10.16
Memory. Nostalgia. Mythology. Fantasy. Ancient tradition. Observational Study. Aparna Sarka’s paintings now hanging at Tappeto Volante Projects
conjure the quiet spaces of ambiguous dreams, of generational family
legacy slowly transforming into personal mysteries of the unconscious,
of the metaphor of household objects, and the reality of hidden stories.
Her loving studies of heirloom draperies, with their traditional
patterns, glowing light, subtle paint layers and gentle textures
are more than mere studies of beautiful cloth. They breathe the
history of her family, its heritage and rituals that course through her
contemporary Brooklyn veins, the invisible life forces that ask
answerless questions and protect with invisible shields. Much as these
drapery studies are a search to make physical the unreachable past, the
mysterious narrative paintings also on view are searches to visualize
ungraspable sensations and incomprehensible questions. In these more
fantastical paintings, non-sequitur images of swimmers swimming in
darkened air, with the ever-present moon shining its allegorical light,
remind us that our inner worlds are a part of our understanding of the
external one, that experience is much more than visual perception alone,
and that much of what roots us to our communities are enigmatic
imaginings. These are paintings that bridge Sarka’s love for the
secrets of ancestors, with an equally passionate openness to the
reveries of her present. Fortunately, the exhibition at TV Projects
remains up through Oct. 29, as photos flatten the painterly depth and
sensitive brushwork viewable in the actual paintings.