once there was there wasn’t
April 5 – 29, 2018
Svetlana Bailey’s work is informed by the interaction between the human body and the psyche. She explores birth, death, and modes of existence through the use of body doubles, molds, and replicas. Her practice moves between large format darkroom photography and the time-based material of melting ice. She works with casts of human bodies, using silicone molds to freeze water and create ice forms. These temporary sculptures are constructed into scenes and documented with photographs. Much of her work is about transformation—how form and meaning shift across states, from liquid to solid, negative to positive and between object and image.
Svetlana Bailey has exhibited throughout the US and internationally, including at Atamian Hovsepian NYC, Elizabeth Houston Gallery NYC, Clamp Art NYC, Pen and Brush NYC, Blue Sky in Portland, Filter Space in Chicago, Artereal in Sydney and the Zhu Qizhan Art Museum in Shanghai. She has previously been in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ISCP in NYC, Marble House Vermont, Mountain School Los Angeles, Vermont Studio Center, Atlantic Center for the Arts, the NARS Foundation in New York, PS122 NY, the Bundanon Trust in Australia, the Three Shadows Photography Arts Center in Beijing and the 501 Artspace in Chongqing.
Svetlana Bailey’s work is held in the Australian Government’s Artbank collection and the Library of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and for two years running was awarded the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward prize. She is the recipient of national and international grants by Creative Australia, Copyright Agency Sydney, Joseph Robert Foundation and the American-Australian Association in New York, and was profiled in Vault Magazine and PDN Magazine. Svetlana received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, lives with her family in New York City and teaches at The New School.
