Sandra Cinto: Two Forces: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present Two Forces, Sandra Cinto’s seventh solo exhibition at the gallery, on view June 1 through July 15, 2016. Ranging from immersive to intimate in scale, new works on canvas expand upon her rich vocabulary of intricately rendered natural forms, incorporating traditional Japanese ink and watercolor techniques developed during a residency in Aomori, Japan last summer.

‪In this new body of work, titled By Chance and Necessity, masterfully hand-drawn rock formations are layered with transparent fields of blue pigment applied to canvas using various methods. Recognizing the generative powers of opposing forces, Cinto strikes an exquisite balance: chance and control, fluid and solid, presence and emptiness are continually in conflict in her work. For Cinto, these dualities are a metaphor for embracing the instabilities in life and can also be understood as complimentary necessities, wherein one element cannot exist or be understood without the other.

Throughout her 25 year practice, Cinto has created powerful compositions that evoke stories of human hardship and redemption, fantastical landscapes that serve as a metaphor for the human odyssey, while also pushing the limits and possibilities of drawing. In particular, water is an important recurring element in the artist’s oeurve, a charged symbol of perpetual transformation that allows her to approach larger questions about existence and the human condition. For Cinto, water is essential to our understanding of reality. It is necessarily universal: we are composed mostly of it, require it for survival, excrete it in extreme emotional and physical states. And at the same time one’s relationship to water is entirely relative: contingent on his or her socioeconomic and geographical orientation, where it may be taken for granted, perilously scarce or abundant. In By Chance and Necessity, water is not only depicted but also materialized as an instrument for composing the final image that at once suspends time and implies its uncontrollable passage.