Home Artists Macha Poynder

Kooness

Macha Poynder

1962
Moscow, Russian Federation

15 Works exhibited on Kooness

Current location

Paris

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Works by Macha Poynder

Anthology of Passion

2023

Paintings , Acrylic

165 x 232 x 0.1cm

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We'll Remember Baton Rouge

2015

Paintings , Acrylic

172 x 314 x 0.1cm

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A Crapshot of Luck

2015

Paintings , Acrylic

162 x 262 x 0.1cm

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You Never Know Where it Starts

2021

Paintings

170 x 150cm

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What We Stay For

2021

Paintings , Acrylic

123 x 112cm

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The Days That Happen to You

2021

Paintings , Acrylic

123 x 114cm

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When Fate Gets Tired of Waiting

2020

Paintings

164 x 140cm

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Macha Poynder is a Russian-born, Paris-based artist whose multi-disciplinary oeuvre is inspired by the philosophies and aesthetic principles of Abstract Expressionism.


Education

Poynder moved permanently from Moscow to Paris in 1982. In 1983, she studied at the Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and in 1986 earned her degree from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.


Technique

Though Poynder works in many mediums, including painting, drawing, photography, film, and performance, the heart of her practice has always been drawing and painting. 

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, trained hand.


Inspiration

Poynder likens her painting process to the creation of music. She considers colors to be sounds, which can form the visual equivalent of chords when placed together in a composition. She seeks rhythm in her compositions, and strives to create a sense of structure. 

When she first discovered the work of the Abstract Expressionists like Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, and Willem de Kooning, she found a kindred spirit in herself. 

She is inspired by the emotive and performative aspect of how those artists worked. She paints sometimes as if she is dancing, with her lines recording the trajectory of her body and her mind. 

Most importantly, she is inspired by the quest to forget what she knows, so she can become liberated from her own rules, and let intuition and instinct guide her while she paints.


Artist Statement

“I am arriving at a point, a threshold, where accumulated knowledge finally leaves, liberated from its control and domination. It turns into pure perception, when the link with the invisible, the unknown, and the infinite becomes clear. The painting can finally spring from its own source. Many things thus become possible. The broadening of perception causes the visual field to broaden, so the territory of a painting grows larger. And so on and so on, like a spiral with no end. Painting is one of the instruments for penetrating the mysteries of the world. Canvas, paper, surface are all windows where the visible and the invisible touch, come together, where the mystery is half open, and where the invisible is revealed.”


Exhibitions

Poynder has exhibited internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Buci Gallery, Paris, T1 + 2 Gallery, London, and Modernism, San Francisco


Collections

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, and the Rijksmuseum, among others.

Selected One Person Exhibitions

2017 

Recent Works, Jean et Danièle Attali, Paris 

2016 

Le bel aujourd’hui, Villa Seurat, Paris 

2015 

To Paint Is To Love Again, Galerie de Buci, Paris 

2012 

Night Paintings, Erco, Paris 

2010 

Lemon Geisha Conversation, T1+2 Gallery, London 

2004 

Shopping Bags, Modernism, San Francisco 

2003 

Shopping Bags, Franck et Fils, Paris 

2000 

Modernism, San Francisco 

1994 

Galerie François Mitaine, Paris 

Works on Paper, Sixth Annual Fair, La Boétie, Inc. & MJS, New York 

1993 

Personal Effects, La Boétie, Inc., New York 

1993 

Galerie J. & J. Donguy, Paris 

1991 

Monique Contencin, Paris 

1990 

Yaoundé, Cameroon, West Africa

 

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013 

B.A.B.E. /The Best Artists’ Books and Editors/, Galerie Immanence, Paris 

2010 

Galerie Drouart, Paris 

Born In The USSR, Made In France, Espace des Blancs-Manteaux, Paris 

2007 

Art Chicago, Modernism, Chicago 

2006 

Art Chicago, Modernism, Chicago 

2005 

Galerie Valérie Gérablié, Paris 

2004 

San Francisco International Art Exposition, Modernism, San Francisco 

2003-2004 

Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Works on Paper, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco 

2003 

Hidden Typography, St Bride Library, London 

2002 

San Francisco International Art Exposition, Modernism, San Francisco 

Art Chicago, Modernism, Chicago 

2001 

Art Chicago, Modernism, Chicago 

2000 

San Francisco International Art Exposition, Modernism, San Francisco 

1999 

San Francisco International Art Exposition, Modernism, San Francisco 

1998 

Galerie W, Paris 

1997 

Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris 

1995 

Works on Paper, Seventh Annual Fair, La Boétie, Inc. & MJS, New York 

1994 

Chez l’un l’autre, Paris 

1993 

Works on Paper, Fifth Annual Fair, La Boétie, Inc. & MJS, New York 

Biennale de Lyon, And They All Do Change the World, Lyon 

1988 

Downey Museum of Art, Los Angeles 

Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou, China 

Cambridge Multicultural Art Center, Boston 

1986 

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris 

Frankfurt Bookfair, Frankfurt 

1984 

Salon des Indépendants, Paris 

1974 

My Moscow, Moscow