Macha Poynder

About

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 settled permanently in Paris in 1982. From that year onwards, and while also attending the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, she studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, having been admitted directly into the third year; she graduated from the latter in 1986. Technique Although Poynder works across various media, including painting, drawing, photography, film, and light-based installations/performances (with her night paintings ), painting and drawing have always remained the core of her practice. Her approach emphasizes gesture, line, color, and space, as well as the interplay between structure and deconstruction. Giving painting itself the central role is essential to her work. She operates on multiple levels, combining moments of movement with moments of stillness to create works defined by their complexity, depth, and vibration; above all, they must breathe and feel alive. Her canvases blend an apparent air of chaos and nonchalance with rigorous structure; they are the product of a purposeful hand, honed by decades of practice. Inspiration Poynder often likens her painting process to creating music. She perceives colors as sounds that can form the visual equivalent of chords and soundscapes when they coexist within a composition. "Colors need to ring out," she says. When she first encountered the work of the Abstract Expressionists - particularly during her many stays in New York throughout the 1990s - she found a family in them, a group of kindred spirits. Furthermore, she describes painting as a form of dancing, with her lines recording the trajectories of both body and mind. For Poynder, painting is another way of thinking, a mode of thought in its own right. Above all, she is driven by the need to unlearn, by a quest to forget and break