"Dream About a Son Who Isn’t Born Yet"
Igor Postash, "Dream About a Son Who Isn’t Born Yet," 2008.
IGOR POSTASH, An Adventure in Seeing
Art Beat Gallery, St. Albert
September 26 to October 25, 2008
By Beverley Beckley
The main aim of Edmonton-area painter Igor Postash is to fool the eye in a whimsical way — was that a man in a tuxedo carrying a candle or a striped cat? Is that an allusion to another artwork? Look again. Postash came to Canada from the Ukraine in 1995, a survivor of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s, which makes his humourous take on life and art that much more remarkable. Though he’s had commissions for public work, including a mural series in West Edmonton Mall, and he does work as a decorative painter and a painting teacher, his passion is for fine art. His surreal, illustrative images of everyday life draw the eye to search out every detail, and the work invites the viewer to invent a story to go with the image. Bursting with colour and a strong narrative sense, the work is consistently themed toward the upbeat. “I strongly believe that art has to heal people and carry nothing but positive energy,” Postash says. “That’s what I try to display in my work.”
Represented by: Art Beat Gallery, St. Albert, AB; Webster Galleries, Calgary