INDEPENDENT: VIAN SORA: Noosphere

David Nolan Gallery is pleased to present Noosphere, a new series of paintings by Vian Sora at Independent New York, on May 9-12, 2024. 

The noosphere, a philosophical concept often summed up as the “thinking layer of earth,” or the “sphere of reason,” represents the highest level of evolution, that of humankind’s rational activities in pursuit of a unified consciousness. As Sora’s paintings reimagine our collective journey towards growth and transcendence, her works are particularly urgent within today’s landscape unsettled by violence, political extremism and the looming destruction of our natural environment, each unresolved due to differences amongst humans. The paintings contrast beauty and brutality, chaos and control to symbolize rebirth and growth within a metaphorical detritus, the elemental conditions for our imperiled evolution.

Vian Sora initiates each work with a disciplined chaos, covering surfaces in a barrage of fast-drying spray paint, acrylics, pigments and inks, using whatever is within arm’s reach — brushes, sponges, paper, nylons, spray bottles or even the force of her own breath — to create passages of intricate texture that might be described as delicate if not for the intensity of color they comprise. The associations they evoke range from the earthly (desiccated land, wood grain, animal pelt), to the celestial (gaseous cloud formations, swirling interstellar dust), to the biological and grotesque
(networks of capillaries, fragments of bone).

Over this visual bewilderment, Sora carves out forms with exacting control, using a small flat brush to apply an opaque layer of paint, usually in two or three distinct and saturated hues, occasionally with a gradated effect. Through this process, a peculiar sort of optical trickery occurs as the opaque sections recede to the background and cause the textured base layer to be viewed as foreground elements.

Sora is highly intentional in the shapes she calls forth from the confusion, as in Verdict (back cover): on the left side of the canvas, she creates the suggestion of figure, perhaps a woman, with a pink face and golden garments; to the right, a more ominous form — a black crow, or maybe a raven — threatens to overtake the human figure in its exaggerated size. Abstract patches of pink and white and black swirl around them, as if whirling, subconscious hauntings, yet Sora is able to assert a sense of composure and assuredness with the soft curves of azure blue she carves into the textured background.

Many of Sora’s works take on the characteristics of landscapes, with clearly demarcated horizon lines, gradient skies and a profusion of bloom- and foliage-like shapes; in interviews, the Baghdad-born Sora has recalled with fondness the hours of her childhood spent among the roses and pomegranate shrubs of her grandmother’s garden in that ancient, fertile crescent. Some of her shapes are sharply defined and present more clearly as tropical foliage or a bird’s plumage, with textures that recall stars scattered across the cosmos. Still, Sora leaves plenty of room for ambiguity and darkness, as when joyful memories of home are tainted with the painful knowledge that one can never return there.