Artist Bio

Avi is a multidisciplinary artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota and has recently completed her B.A. in Studio Art and Psychology at Grinnell College. She is drawn to observing habits, bodily responses, social interactions, and moments of discomfort as a way of understanding both herself and others. Her work often begins with close attention to the body—what it does unconsciously, repetitively, and instinctively—and how those actions reflect internal states. Avi’s work does not aim to resolve anxiety, fear, or dread, but rather to honor their complexity: their repetitions, distortions, and lingering presence. When she’s not in the studio, she enjoys developing new skills whenever possible. Some of her favorite activities include dancing, building LEGO structures (and time-lapsing the process), staring at clouds, and predicting the plot of nearly every TV show or movie she watches.

Artist Statement

Unconscious face pulling is a repetitive coping gesture, a way of drawing stress out of the body. The physical sensation releases tension that is indescribable, and translating that action into art invites viewers to consider how anxiety lives in the body as much as the mind. My work makes that private habit visible with no resolution. As a multimedia artist, I work across drawing, oil painting, and printmaking because no single medium feels sufficient. Graphite offers immediacy and raw precision. Oil demands slowness, gradually building depth and atmosphere. Screen printing invites repetition and rhythm. Moving between them is less a choice than a compulsion; each one captures something the others cannot, and I find I need all of them. Color is used intentionally. Teal and orange feel euphoric to me, and placing those colors against an uneasy subject matter creates a quiet tension: the contradiction between distress and self-soothing made visible. My work does not aim to resolve anxiety. It aims to sit with it: to trace its repetitions, its distortions, the way it lingers long after the moment has passed. What remains, I hope, is not relief but recognition. Consistent comparison is an action that I have never been able to control, and that drives my life. Relentlessly measuring myself against others, against standards I never chose.

Art Title

Good Enough? depicts a self-portrait caught inside a comparative loop: visibly alive, visibly thriving, yet still somehow questioning worth. The voice of comparison does not care what is actually true. The piece pairs with Why Me?: used as a verbal cue to express what runs through my mind as I pull my face. Finally, Serenity works as the resolution. The painting is a therapeutic approach to silencing these thoughts through process and color. The colors radiate a beautiful harmony that eases my mind. Together, the three works speak of the same mind from different angles.