Peripheral Visions: Recent Art by Irenaeus and Dorian Yurchuk

Art at the Institute was pleased to present an exhibition of mixed media artworks exploring extreme visions of architectonic and topographic ruminations by father and son, Irenaeus and Dorian Yurchuk. Curated by Walter Hoydysh, PhD, Director of Art at the Institute, this is the artists’ first exhibition with The Ukrainian Institute of America in New York.

The dense matrix that occupies Irenaeus Yurchuk’s paintings appears both constructed and organic. Like the cultural architecture they evoke, these vague photomechanical records have grown from some originating seed into a pulsating mass whose boundaries are indeterminate and fluctuating. While his approach is characterized by a modernist recombination of photographic fragments into wholly abstract combinations, Irenaeus Yurchuk augments his surfaces with chromatic paint media and other materials to engineer a detailed diagrammatic figuration. The final effect proves a stunning pastiche of image, pattern, color and texture.

In contrast to his father, Dorian Yurchuk develops rituals of his own, creating objects, reliefs and illustrations that operate between painting and sculpture, and that establish new realms for visual exploration. Multilayered in their meanings, these works are resonant with Yurchuk’s occupational and perceptual past, incorporating objects and remnants from the building trade and using these elemental materials to create works imbued with a poetic spirit residing between order and chaos, creation and destruction.

Autonomous from but parallel to Dorian’s ‘objets’, grander two-dimensional renderings are made by an inveterate outdoorsman responding to topographies from above and below. Yurchuk records the intense sensations evoked by landscapes, plant life, architecture, and qualities of light and atmosphere. Abstracting these encounters into idiosyncratic forms and intense colors, his illustrations and paintings capture his sense of wonder with the ebb and flow of the natural world.

Born in Ukraine during the Second World War, Iranaeus Yurchuk grew up in Central New York State. He earned an architectural degree from The Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture as well as graduate degree in urban design and planning from Columbia University. He worked on urban design and planning projects throughout the U.S. and Canada until 2010, when he turned to art full-time.
His creative work includes drawing, painting, graphic design, photography and film making. He has participated in group exhibitions in North America and Europe, including a recent solo show at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance Gallery in Upstate New York. His artworks are held in private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Dorian Yurchuk studied architecture at The Cooper Union and McGill University, and practices in the area of historic restoration and preservation. His artworks have been exhibited at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance and group exhibitions at Grazhda Music and Art Center of Greene County and Université du Québec à Montréal.

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Exhibition hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00 – 6:00 PM, or by appointment.