Alina Bliumis

Situations proudly presents Gut Feelings, Alina Bliumis's second solo exhibition with the gallery. Continuing to explore visual strategies to subvert censorship, Bliumis's latest series takes up the tradition of still life painting for its symbolic potential. Associations between images of food and sex have persisted for centuries in the arts, from the erotically-charged fruits appearing in Giovanni da Udine's festoons framing Raphael's exquisite 16th century fresco, Cupid and Psyche, to the 17th century Dutch still lifes portraying tables overflowing with exotic produce to mirror the wealth reaped through new overseas trade and colonial ventures. Bliumis reinterprets the genre through a distinctly contemporary lens, incorporating the impacts of globalized trade, climate change, and authoritarianism upon our relationship to food and agriculture.

Monumentally scaled fruit, oysters, and vegetables are set within moody, Romantic landscapes. Impossible to ignore, they speak to a sense of unease amid the rise of industrial-scale farming and GMOs. An enormous, single raspberry, blimp-like, hovers in the air against a cloud-streaked sky; elsewhere, the discarded rind and seeds from a honeydew melon suggest a pair of spooning figures, accompanied by two cigarette butts. Cascades of plump tomatoes, pears, and cherries spill forth as chaotic bounties, highlighting the disparities between American supermarkets of imported plenty, and dwindling international aid packages airdropped by drone.

In a tumultuous era of sensationalized news, book bans, and fresh attacks on free speech, eggplant, peach, and watermelon emojis on social media have shown to be effective tools to circumvent restrictions, address bodily autonomy, and spread awareness around political issues. Addressing the gut as both a site of digestion and intuition, Bliumis's paintings urge viewers to trust their instincts, and read between the lines.

"Oh fruit blessed above all others Good before, in the middle and after the meal, But perfect behind."

—Peach Poem by Francesco Berni, 1522

Alina Bliumis (b. Minsk, Belarus; lives and works in New York) received her BFA from the School of Visual Art in 1999 and a diploma from the Advanced Course in Visual Arts in Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy in 2005. She has exhibited at Situations, NYC; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, USA; the Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration, Paris, France; Busan Biennale, South Korea; Tokyo Biennial, JP; Assab One, Milan, Italy; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY; Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris; Centre d'art Contemporain, Meymac, France; The James Gallery, The Graduate Center CUNY, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH; Museums of Bat Yam, Israel; The Jewish Museum, NYC; The Saatchi Gallery, London; Botanique Museum, Brussels; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Musée de l'Homme, Paris, France, the First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow and MAC VAL/Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, France. Private and public collections include MAC VAL - Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, France; Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration, Paris; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia; Bat Yam Museum for Contemporary Art, Israel; The Saatchi Collection, UK; The Harvard Business School, USA; The National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia; and Missoni Collection, Italy. Bliumis's work has been reviewed in Artforum, ART - Das Kunstmagazin, ArtNews, AnOther Magazine, Vogue Italia, Hyperallergic and Art and Climate Change (World of Art) by Maja Fowkes, Reuben Fowkes, Thames & Hudson, Political Art and Activism, Art & Agenda, Gestalten 2011 and Shape Of Things To Come: New Sculpture, Rizzoli, 2008.