Marianna Levant
In Marianna Levant’s seven paintings at Gescheidle clusters of highly detailed forms float dreamily in space, their planes and curves suggesting both machinery and the natural world. All but one were inspired by clock or watch mechanisms; the exception, from an earlier group of works, was based on automobile parts. Throughout, her lyrical, rhythmic mix of repetition and variation conveys a delicate harmony.
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Levant was born in 1979 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where her parents worked for the Bolshoi Drama Theater. “I was always into the spectacle,” she says. “The sets were hand painted by artists, and it was like layers of tapestries opening up for scene changes.” As a child, she says, she “drew like crazy, but nobody seemed to notice. I remember one week when I drew absolutely every object in the house.” On long walks with her grandmother she became “fascinated by the city. I loved the baroque details on buildings. I remember my mom telling me that there’s not a single row of identical windows in the city.” She also remembers Saint Petersburg being wrapped in fog in fall and winter. “Certain things disappeared, and others were revealed, something I came to appreciate much later in Asian art.” Decay also fascinated her: “Whenever you get a little bit away from the main streets, such as into apartment building courtyards, there’s this aging going on, garbage and dirt and chipped paint and the stucco falling apart.”
