An Introduction to Mirages pairs the works of Ewelina Bochenska and Omar Lalani, two artists with disparate approaches to painting and seeks to find their inherent similarities in image making through the metaphor of the mirage.

Alexander DiJulio is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition of artists Ewelina Bochenska and Omar Lalani at the Lower East Side location. The show pairs two artists with disparate approaches to painting and seeks to find their inherent similarities in image making.

The show’s title references a text by Andrew Young of the same name which breaks down the phenomenon of the mirage, one which often happens at the height of summer and can cause our impression of distant objects to shift and contort. Young describes this in the following way: “…mirages significantly distort the object or objects on which they are based, often such that the object is completely unrecognizable. A [mirage] may be seen on land or at sea, in polar regions, or in deserts. It may involve almost any kind of distant object, including boats, islands, and the coastline. Often, mirages change rapidly.”

The heads and faces that emerge through the color hued mists of Lalani's canvases seem to be pulled from similar ether. They make the viewer question the nature of these images — do these visages exist in perfect clarity somewhere beyond or are they simply comprised of what it is that appears to obscure them? In the works on view from Bochenska, similar complexities arise. We see the possibility of landscapes, processionals and deities in blushing splotches of color over often unstretched pieces of fabric, leather and lace.

Both artists abstract our understanding of the visual plane and reduce what we know to shimmers on the horizon. Often times the most captivating things we see are the things we understand the least, impressions of the world around us that leave us with a feeling rather than a whole understanding.