Spotlight: Anne Marie Kornachuk

     
                               
Left to right: "Weightless: Mad Tea Party""Little Wing""Pink Mandala"
Anne Marie Kornachuk is originally from Canada, born in 1969. Kornachuk completed her BFA at Concordia University in Montreal in 1993. She has participated in numerous solo shows and group exhibitions in Canada, the US, and abroad. She is represented in five galleries, four American and one Canadian. These include, Good Art Company (Texas), Miller Gallery (Ohio), Robert Lange Studios (South Carolina), Skidmore Contemporary Art (California), and Trias Gallery (Ontario). 

Kornachuk describes herself as a realist painter who is best known for her "figures" and "equus" (horses) paintings. She works mainly with oil paints, using traditional painting techniques and is inspired by the drama of light and dark as portrayed in Baroque Art.
        "The animated nature of the fabric, which overwhelms the figure at times, plays multiple roles. I           see a kind of operatic drama in the beauty, complexity and rippling energy of the fabric, as if the fabric is alive with the hidden internal dramas of the figure. These internal dramas speak to me about everyday experience, where one manages various quiet struggles with more or less success (...) My figures straddle the lines of rigidity and confinement, perhaps societal expectations, internal pressures" (Kornachuk, 2006). 

Kornachuk's paintings resinated with me for a few reasons. The first being that I most enjoy Realist artwork, Kornachuk's works can easily be mistaken as photographs at first glance. The image which drew me to her was, "Weightless: Mad Tea Party". The use of a wedding style dress depicted in such a radical position is very shocking to the eye. It conveyed to me the feeling of rebellion, much like Kornachuk intends when she paints fabric to resemble internal turmoil or drama. Wedding dresses have a specific connotation and marriage is sometimes a controversial obstacle for woman to maneuver. In regions around the world, marriage is synonymous with ownership, and women can be bought and enslaved to their husbands, regardless of treatment or living conditions. There are also social pressures for woman to be "wife material" and strive to be married, rather than focus on professional goals or pursuit of a passion. Another reason I really like Kornachuk's work is her representation of different cultures through the fabrics she chooses to paint. However, all of her subjects appear to have light skin and therefore dark skin is not represented in her art. "Little Wing", is a woman wearing what I believe to be a traditional Chinese garment, this could be a commentary on the Asian Female experience. The choice of having all female subjects wearing dresses and fabrics related to milestones in a woman's life, makes Kornachuk's artwork a translation of experiences through a woman's expression and body language, therefore giving women "a voice" on the matter.

Link: https://www.annemariekornachuk.com/galleries/figures/