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When Women Were Birds by Elody Gyekis
As an artist, I am inspired by the exquisite beauty of nature. In my figurative works, I am influenced by mythology, fairy tales, and magical realism. This is a selection of my figurative and nature-inspired work created in the last 8 years, a period of time that includes a very personal body of work I made leading up to my applications to graduate programs and works that I made during and since earning my MFA at the New York Academy of Art. Much of my subject matter remains thematically similar, yet my technical approach to painting and creating compositions has shifted dramatically in that time. This show is an opportunity for me to gather these works together from across this particular period of my life to see that arc of my growth and share it with all of you.
Opening Reception
Please join Elody for the opening reception of her show at 114 S. Allen St during downtown State College’s First Friday celebration September 2 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres are generously provided by KISH Bank.
See Elody’s exhibition September 2–28. Visit anytime Mon.–Fri., 9:00 am –5:00 pm or Sat. 9:00 am – 12:00 pm.
Artist Bio
Elody Gyekis is a painter, animator, and sculptor. She earned her MFA in Painting at the New York Academy of Art and her BFA in Painting and Ceramics from Penn State University. Her work has been exhibited in many group and solo shows in Pennsylvania and New York, and also across the USA, Central America and Europe. She completed artist residencies in Sibiu, Romania in 2014 and Giverny, France in 2018. Elody has taught painting workshops in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Honduras, and Costa Rica. In addition to her fine art, she has been a community arts organizer of over a dozen murals and other large-scale public art projects in Pennsylvania and other states. In recent years, Elody has lived, worked, and taught in Honduras, Pennsylvania, and Brooklyn.
Artist Statement
Whether I am creating a painting, sculpture, or animation, I use the language of myths and fairytales to play freely with gender roles. My work explores visual storytelling as a process of catharsis, both personally and for my subjects. I work collaboratively with the people I depict in my compositions; they enter that domain with agency and consent as makers of their own meaning. Feminine traits are still systematically undervalued and dismissed, and our culture still shames behavior that falls outside of established gender roles. In my current studio practice I delve deeply into the pleasures of color and beauty and decoration: aesthetics that have long been considered feminine and thus unworthy of serious consideration in Western Art. I celebrate femininity and question the boundaries of gender expression by following my instincts and diving fully into my own untidy fantasies.
Find Elody at:
Instagram: @elodygyekis
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