Saturday opening at New Haven Free Public Library

New Haven Free Public Library Art Gallery
133 Elm St., New Haven
Urban Vertigo: Artworks by Mounira Stott
Sept. 15—Oct. 15, 2008
Artist's reception: Sat., Sept. 20, 2:30—4:30 p.m.

Press release

"Over the last ten years, since immigrating to the USA," writes Mounira Stott, "my work has been influenced more and more by my fascination with the modern city—its textures, rhythms and ever changing patterns—particularly New York City.

Ms. Stott came to the U.S. from Russia, where she received her B.F.A. from the Moscow College of Artistic Professions in 1992. She also studied and worked in the field of electronics and computers, previously receiving her M.S. in Automation and Remote Control Electronics from the Moscow Radio Technology Institute in 1981 and her B.S. in Computers, Instruments and Devices from the Rasplatin College of Radio-Technology in 1975.

"Initially I captured a more representational view of New York, focusing on the play of colors and planes within a clear representation of the scene at hand. More recently however I try to separate my representation of the texture and the rhythm of the city from my representation of its reality, to draw the viewer into an appreciation and a sense of those rhythms without losing his or her connection to their source—the reality of the city. By using a variety of unusual perspectives that surprise the viewer, he at first loses the city's reality and sees only the 'essence' of its vitality in the light, color and planes of the painting. This essence reaches directly to his emotions rather than his mind. However, as the mind has a few minutes to digest what it sees it suddenly penetrates the surprising perspective and realizes that this is an urban landscape and thus makes the connection.

"One might view the works therefore as almost completely abstracted and at the same time as almost completely representational. In some cases the works capture a very narrow segment of the city—a part of a single structure for example, and in others, such as the aerial 'Urban Exploration' series the city's grand overall patterns and textures."

Mounira Stott's artwork is in many collections in the US and Russia, and has been shown in many venues including the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery, on the Upper West Side, NYC; the Blue Mountain Gallery, Chelsea, NYC; Ward-Nasse Gallery, SoHo, NYC; and NoHo Gallery, NYC; as well as at the CARTUS Corporation in Danbury, CT; and the Artwell Gallery in Torrington, CT, juried by Cynthia Roznoy, Ph.D, curator of the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury.

In Russia, her work was honored to be shown in the Artist's Guild Gallery, and to be in the Office of the President, the State Museum, and in the Ministry of Culture in Kazan, the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia.