Ilana Savdie begins her paintings with a figurative drawing. She then digitally reworks this drawing and combines it with other images to create a collage. Savdie experiments with shapes and colors. Finally, the artist copies the image onto canvas using either oil or acrylic, and sometimes wax paint. Savdie has a penchant for large format, her paintings are usually larger than 150 x 100 cm.
Savdie explores the depth of human identity. Starting from the visible body to everything that slumbers invisibly in him and distinguishes his character. The main source of inspiration for the bright, vibrant paintings is the Colombian Carnival, Savdie's home country. The exhibition Ilana Savdie: Radical Contractions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is one of the largest in the young painter's career to date. It runs from July 17 to October 29, and admission is free.
Ilana Savdie (b. 1986) grew up in Barranquilla in northern Colombia and moved to Miami as a teenager. She now lives in New York, having completed her master's degree at Yale University in 2018. Savdie's work has been featured in various international exhibitions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Kunstraum Potsdam, and Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp.
