Macha Poynder

What We Stay For (Abstract Expressionism painting)

2021

Macha Poynder is a Russian-born, Paris-based artist, whose multi-disciplinary oeuvre is inspired by the philosophies and aesthetic principles of Abstract Expressionism. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the New York Public Library, the Rijksmuseum and among others. Her method emphasizes gesture, line, color, and space. Physicality and action are key to her technique. To create her drawings and paintings, she expands on the methods of the Abstract Expressionists, blending automatic drawing, performative gestures and intuitive color choices to express the depths of her unconscious. She works with multiple layers and colors, creating works that are defined by their complexity and depth. Her textured and painterly surfaces blend areas of apparent randomness, where the paint has been splashed or dripped with areas of precision, where the paint has been applied with a deliberate and trained hand.