Yevgeniya Baras, born in 1981 in Syzran, former Soviet Union, is a painter living and working in New York whose practice occupies a charged space between abstraction and archaeology, fantasy and material fact. Working on canvas and linen with oil and mixed media, Baras builds surfaces of exceptional tactile density, embedding burlap, wool, tire rubber, fabric, stones, and wood directly into her compositions so that material and image become inseparable.
Her paintings resist fixed meaning: cryptic codes and near-recognisable patterns emerge across the surface only to be immediately undermined through repetition and transformation, producing works that are cyclical, porous, and alive with unresolved energy. Drawing on references as wide-ranging as Shiva Lingam paintings, the abstract physicality of Elizabeth Murray, the decorative delicacy of Florine Stettheimer, and the visionary early American modernism of Forrest Bess,
Yevgeniya Baras has built a practice of rare intellectual and sensory depth. She participated in the artist-in-residence program at 68projects by KORNFELD Galerie Berlin in 2018, resulting in the solo exhibition Clocks Deep in Us, presented at 68projects from October to November 2018.
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Untitled, 2018 Sold
Yevgeniya Baras was born in 1981 in Syzran, in the former Soviet Union, and lives and works in New York. She received her BA in Fine Arts and Psychology and her MS in Education from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003, and completed her MFA in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, where she was awarded the Graduate Honors Fellowship. Alongside her studio practice, Baras has taught extensively, holding faculty positions at Sarah Lawrence College, RISD, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Hofstra University, and CUNY, and serving as visiting artist at institutions including Tufts University, the University of Leeds, and Pratt Institute.
Baras's paintings are constructed as much as they are painted. Burlap, wool, tire rubber, fabric, stones, and wood are physically attached to the canvas surface and simultaneously woven into the image itself, so that material and pictorial space become one. Her works dissolve the boundary between the fantastic and the real, producing objects that are porous and cyclical, shaped by flows and transitions rather than fixed symbols. Whenever a pattern becomes recognisable, it is immediately destabilised through repetition and transformation, refusing to hold onto any single meaning. The edges of forms appear to dance, holding the boundary of shape without rigidity. Drawing on a wide range of references, from Shiva Lingam paintings as symbols of energy, to the abstract physicality of Elizabeth Murray, the decorative and delicate qualities of Florine Stettheimer, and the early American modernist visionary works of Forrest Bess, Baras pushes abstraction to its most tactile extreme while embedding cryptic codes into the surface that invite the viewer to decipher rather than simply observe.
Yevgeniya Baras is the recipient of a remarkable constellation of fellowships and awards that reflect the depth of institutional recognition her practice has earned. These include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2023 and 2018), the Senior Fulbright Scholarship (2022/2023), the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2021), the Guggenheim Fellowship (2019), the Artadia Award (2015), the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2014), the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (2015), and the MacDowell Colony Residency (2015). She was also selected for the Chinati Foundation Residency in Marfa, Texas (2018), the Yaddo Residency (2017), the Bau Institute Residency at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France (2019), and the Surf Point Foundation Residency (2020). Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, ArtReview, The New York Times, ArtNews, and New York Magazine, among other publications. From 2010 to 2018, Baras co-founded and curated Regina Rex Gallery on the Lower East Side of New York, and from 2011 to 2015 she co-founded and curated Bull and Ram, a migratory curatorial project.
Baras has exhibited widely across the United States and internationally. Institutional and non-commercial presentations include Given Time at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, New York (2022); the White Columns group exhibition programme, New York; and the Chinati Foundation, Marfa.
Yevgeniya Baras participated in the artist-in-residence program at 68projects by KORNFELD Galerie Berlin in 2018. The residency resulted in the solo exhibition Clocks Deep in Us, presented at 68projects, Fasanenstrasse 68, Berlin, from 24 October to 17 November 2018. The exhibition brought together paintings in which material, image, and cryptic surface codes dissolved the boundary between the fantastic and the real, positioning Baras's work within the broader context of Berlin's contemporary painting scene. She also participated in the group exhibition We Might Not Have a Planet Left Soonat 68projects in 2017, curated by Adrianne Rubenstein, and was included in Berlin on My Mind, the group exhibition at 68projects by KORNFELD Galerie Berlin celebrating ten years of the gallery's artist-in-residence program, in 2024. Her practice continues to evolve through an ongoing commitment to material experimentation, institutional engagement, and the refusal of any fixed pictorial language.
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Berlin on my Mind. Celebrating 10 Years of Artistic Residency at 68projects by KORNFELD – Groupshow
21 Jun - 24 Aug 2024 68projectsARTISTSRead more
Dawit Abebe, Olasunkanmi Akomolehin, Cristina BanBan, Yevgeniya Baras, William Bradley, Giorgio Celin, Chris Engman, Kimia Ferdowsi Kline, Seong Joon Hong, Chris Hood, Michael John Kelly, Alexander Kroll, Doron Langberg, Sandeep Mukherjee, Jennifer Packer, Adrianne Rubenstein, Kyungmi Shin, Levan Songulashvili, Panos Tsagaris, Rachel Eulena Williams & Liat Yossifor
INFORMATION
On 21 June, we will showcase 21 works by the 21 artists who have been our guests as artists-in-residence over the past 10 years of 68projects by KORNFELD – with ‘Berlin on My Mind’. We are celebrating our 10 years with 68projects by KORNFELD and the 10 years of our artist-in-residence program, but also our future, which we hope to keep creating in Berlin. In Berlin, international artists look for new perspectives, a place where ideas mingle
Opening: June 21 2024, 6 pm
Exhibition: June 21 – August 24 2024, Tue – Sat, 11 am – 6 pm
68projects by KORNFELD, Fasanenstr. 68, 10719 Berlin -
Yevgeniya Baras – Clocks deep in us
24 Oct - 17 Nov 2018 68projectsThe fantasy world often serves as an escape from reality, its limitations, and its many social, economic, and corporeal restrictions. Reality, in turn, is often desired amidst the delusions of the fantastic. However, the two are not always separate. The artist pulls from a diverse set of references: from Shiva Lingam paintings that are seen as symbols of energy, then to the abstract physicality of Elizabeth Murray's work, to the delicate and decorative from Florine Stettheimer and the Early American Modernist Visionary works of Forrest Bess – Baras's works are physical, archaeological and gritty. Her work takes abstraction to its most tactile moment and then folds in cryptic codes on the surface of the paintings that the viewer is invited to decode.Read more -
We might not have a planet left soon – Groupshow
27 Apr - 5 Aug 2017 68projectsYevgeniya Baras, Gina Beavers, Katherine Bradford, Kimia Ferdowsi Kline, Jackie Gendel, Pam Glick, Joanne Greenbaum, Maia Ruth Lee, Dona NelsonRead more
Following an invitation by 68projects, the American artist, curator and director of CANADA gallery Adrianne Rubenstein selected nine ambiguous artists for the art exhibition. We might not have a planet left soon that we are showing during Gallery Weekend. The collection is a soliloquy about painting. The time it takes to make something. Colour and form. Dedication. As the planet unravels, which it’s always been doing at every stage, you plant a flower, and it is beautiful. The more beautiful, the more, in contrast, it is with its background. A flower in outer space or a flower growing out of a broken brick wall.“
