VISUAL BIOGRAPHY

NOA AIN had her first show of paintings at THE ICE HOUSE, Lenox, Mass., David Rothstein, curator. Her first public showing of "VISUAL MUSIC-TEXT" on Japanese Scrolls in conjunction with her opera, THE OUTCAST, was produced by David Gockley at THE HOUSTON GRAND OPERA. For five years, her wall of "TRANSFORMING PORTRAITS" were shown at PETROSSIANS BOUTIQUE AND CAFE, in New York City. At the MILLBROOK ARTS CENTER, her opera, JOAN OF ARC, played continuously in surround sound in a space where 9 of her iridescent acrylic paintings inspired by her opera were beautifully displayed (curator, Bill Hardy).

Over the last 8 years, she has had 5 solo shows at REALLY GREAT THINGS (curators, Ryan Zentner and Rande Mas)..three of these shows sold out. Her solo show at MONIKA OLKO GALLERY in East Hampton was followed by a showing of her paintings at ARTHAMPTON. Since moving to Hamilton Heights four years ago, her home has acted as her private gallery with guests and evenings by invitation only. She is very happy that Haitem Weslati has invited her to present three showings of various types of her work in TASZO, everyone's favorite cafe...

ON THE PAINTINGS OF NOA AIN

What is particularly interesting about the visual artist Noa Ain is the fact that she is also a consummate musician and composer, with a history of distinguished musical accomplishments that include both pop culture as well as operas, film scores and play writing. The result in her painting is a translation of her powerful lyrical musical understanding into a formal painterly framework that morphs tone into color and meter into shape. Furthermore these formal painterly skills relate to all sorts of life forms, and like her music, are emblems of her humane and caring spirit.

The results, again as in her music, are about how she savors life and we can access it directly, without the intervention of a tortured crucial exegesis. Her recent paintings of plant forms, of leaves wet with rain and lyrically flowing with color that is both naturalistic yet invented, have a visual pleasure that almost insinuates a musical score. The scale of these paintings are large without overburdening the scale of the subject matter. If there is an associative art lurking in her work, -all art piggybacks prior art- it is in the large flower forms of Georgia O'Keefe, but here the similarities end abruptly. Noa Ain's works are pliant melodies of color and form that are elegies to nature rather than the graphic, iconic constructors found in O'Keefe.

The paintings by Noa Ain fall within the canon of modernist aesthetics by hewing a delicate balance between the observed form and the artist's visual recreation of it in two dimensional terms. The flat patter making application of subtle, yet vibrantly resonating color, attest to her music based abstract temperament; the pictures are about the world around us.

Burt Silverman, N.A. - On the Paintings of Noa Ain

WHY DO WE LIKE NOA' SCREENS?

Noa's paintings do not try to reproduce or imitate reality. Reality exists in them only as a glimmer, a flicker, and a reflection of a reflection. In that sense they are not attempting to present the viewer with any type of a whole view of reality. They capture transitoriness of the world in which we live.

They appear as fragments, as if cut out from a larger canvas. Those imaginary canvases render impressions from undiscovered flowery fields and avalanches of fallen golden petals as in Manifestation of a Goddess. Chromatic greens of the Ephemeral Body. Render the sensual vibrations of delicate twigs. It seems that those petals and twigs will appear for a moment from a glimmering, radiant atmosphere and then disappear, dissolve in the constantly moving world.

These works thematize our sensual experience with reality be it reality of flowers, or any other distant "remnant" of a landscape. Noa clearly evokes Impressionistic mannerisms and approaches to the painterly vision, however her landscapes represent already faded, dismantled memories of Monet, Pissaro or Klimt. We experience distant reminiscences of Monet's dancing poppy fields, exuberant water lilies and fragrant grasses. We experience Klimt's golden flowery fabrics and Pissaro's glimmering and shimmering water as distant, subtle touches.

Noa refers to her canvases as "screens" pointing to the fact that her paintings also veil something that evades representation. The secret world lies hidden behind these screens. What we are confronting are the traces - vague and delicate imprints of reality, as if retained in dried flowers and leaves. Every flower petal or twig looses concreteness, its shape is never clearly defined by a line. It dissolves itself in myriads of indiscriminate shades and pastel colors.

Noa's paintings exist as reflections of reflections, and represent reality that no longer can present itself to the viewer in its wholeness and monumental glory. It is however, still aware of it's fragile charm and beauty.

Krystayna Illakowicz

Most of the visuals are available for purchase if interested. Contact for additional information.