Visiting Artists & Critics Series Lecture: Yana Payusova

The UCCS Visiting Artists & Critics Series(VACS) features a lineup of presentations by artists and critics of national and international significance. The program’s goal is to foster understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through dialogue and critical conversations. Each VACS lecture takes place in the Chapman Foundation Recital Hall, next door to the Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery in the Ent Center for the Arts. High-quality video recordings of each lecture are made public and archived on GOCA’s digital content platform within two weeks of each event.

Yana Payusova’s work reflects both her cultural heritage and training in traditional Russian realist painting, and it blends the styles and symbols of folk art, icons, graphic posters, illustration, and comics. The mundane activities depicted on her ceramic tiles or vessels, such as women doing the washing up or sitting under the hairdryer at the salon, are countered by gold luster highlights. Through this gesture, Payusova’s ordinary heroines become mythical protagonists in painted three-dimensional form.