Improvisations in art

OLGA LIVSHIN

With Yuri Elperin, everything is jazz. The artist’s show, The Essence of Jazz, which opened on June 14 at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, consists of 12 large canvases, each one linked to a particular jazz composition. When visitors entered the gallery during opening night, they were greeted by the fanciful jazz skirls of a saxophone and a bass (played by Saul Berson and Paul Blaney, respectively). The snatches of melodies floated through the air, slipping between the guests and echoing off the paintings and their abstract images.

During an interview with the Independent, the artist focused on his philosophy, but no esthetic exists independently of the mundane events that formed them, gave them life. For Elperin, it all started in Riga, in the former Soviet Union and now the capital city of Latvia. He studied art at the Riga Art Academy and had his first show in his hometown in 1963. In that era, the communist regime didn’t approve of Abstract Expressionism, the style the artist adhered to then. “They called it ‘capitalistic pathology,’” he recalled.

Faced with the harsh criticism and disdain of communist censors, unable to express his vision freely, he chose to leave the country. In 1977, he emigrated and, after a year of wandering around Europe, learning from the Old Masters’ works in Vienna, Barcelona and Rome, he moved to Canada and eventually settled in Vancouver.

In the early 1980s, Elperin set up a commercial photo and video production studio and immersed himself in experimental expressionistic work, playing with light and darkness and applying his ideas for abstract painting to his photos and films. “But special effects weren’t enough for me,” he explained of his choice to leave the studio in 1999, in order to dedicate himself completely to his painting.

“I like jazz very much,” he said. “Each one of my pieces here, in the gallery, is connected to a jazz composition. When you listen to jazz, images appear in your subconscious. They are like ghosts or dreams, unformed. Jazz is similar to abstract painting. In jazz, there is a combination of intellectual and intuitive, emotional content and mathematic precision. The musical theme and the improvisations transform themselves into my canvases. That’s why almost all my paintings have two or more parts.”

According to the artist, in the parts corresponding to the theme, lines flow and shapes coalesce, interacting with one another, while in the improvisational parts, the brush strokes rush together with different colors, colliding and entangling into infinity. He calls his style Ghost Trance Lyrical Abstraction, although it is frequently labeled Tachisme in European art.

“Like in music, improvisational abstracts are instantaneous, confined to the moment. In a different moment, you’ll feel differently, so your images would come out differently,” he explained. “To reflect the music, I always listen to the piece I’m painting.”

Bright colors explode in his paintings. In “Underwater Love II,” hints of eroticism remind viewers of languid blue seas and mermaids, while the orange-dominated “City of Brass” thrums with sensual tension and the joy of music. Dark-red “Bohemia” is reminiscent of tempestuous nights and unfulfilled desires.

“Everybody prefers different paintings,” the artist commented. “This is one of my favorites.” He pointed at “Oy Veys Mir,” prompted by a jazz piece by Paul Shapiro. “There’s a Jewish theme there. A Jewish man is praying, but then he starts thinking about his beautiful wife, making love to her – you see all those shapes – and then he thinks he’d better get back to his prayers.”

Such little stories, sometimes humorous, sometimes embroidered with passion, sprang up for viewers, as one painting passed into another, while jazz improvisations played softly in the background, reiterating the same tunes the artist used as his inspiration.

“I’m trying to reflect in my paintings all the fluctuations of thoughts and emotions that are inherent in jazz music,” he said. “We transform our lives into our art; that’s what artists do.”

Elperin explained that his jazz series consists of more than 50 paintings, but that he is now trying a new musical direction: Chinese opera. Recently, Elperin returned from a trip to China, where he exhibited his work. They were received with enthusiasm, and many of his Chinese friends made it to the opening at the Zack, so many, in fact, that a translator was required to translate gallery director Reisa Schneider’s introductory speech into Chinese. The paintings and the music didn’t need any translation. The Essence of Jazz is on display until July 8.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

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