Despite starting college as a chemistry major, one drawing class freshman year was enough to completely change Aliyana Gewirtzman’s trajectory. She switched to art history and then art, thinking that she could work in galleries or eventually go to law school to placate her parents. This program was more conceptually focused than technically focused, and it helped her hone in on her particular interest: natural spaces that are marked by human inference.
When she graduated, Gewirtzman moved to Brooklyn to continue painting landscapes, and she also began working in galleries, taking on graphic design projects, and teaching at the New York School of Interior Design. She continues to teach color theory, basic drawing, and design principles to students globally, thanks to their extensive remote offerings.
During this time, she also assisted more established artists, helping them to keep up with the demands of production. She describes it as a paint-by-numbers of sorts and appreciates how it exposed her to different materials and scale. It also helped her see the downside of commercial success, namely the pressure to hone in on one distinct style or idea and then mass produce it.
“It’s a treadmill you have to stay on,” she says. “You have to keep producing work you don’t necessarily believe in to keep up.”
Gewirtzman loves being less aesthetically consistent in style, especially now that she’s removed from New York and the pressures of its art scene. Between living in a basement studio in Brooklyn and moving to her current home in Conifer, she explored #vanlife and is now pursuing different ideas from that time in large format oil paintings—a departure from this nomadic time when she’d predominantly capture her surroundings via watercolor.
Last summer, Gewirtzman did a residency in Virginia at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. She was surrounded by writers, poets, fiber artists, etc., who all have a tie to cultivated earth or botanicals in some way, and was able to make work she never would have in Colorado.
The Formal Garden came from this residency and depicts Bunny Melon’s main passion project garden. Melon helped design the now infamous Rose Garden at the White House, but for this space, she meticulously cultivated some parts and allowed others to grow more wild.
For example, the orange tree is perfectly sculpted, but there are also herbs between the pavers and even two mulleins. In reality, that weed would take over if given the opportunity, and so even the wild elements of the garden are somewhat manipulated.
Gewirtzman uses the painting to explore the tension of falseness even in what we perceive as natural processes. She also used it to push herself to capture the garden at this low, hazy light level.
“Making it in paint was very challenging,” says Gewirtzman. “In the process of making it, I figured it out.”
As with most of her paintings, Gewirtzman did not start with a white canvas. Ever since college, she’s preferred painting on wood and likes having a little texture and natural depth on the surface, in addition to the relief of not having to start from nothing.
“Something about a white page is terrible,” she says.
When Gewirtzman paints repetitive patterns onto wood, her brain settles into a meditative state, and through detail, she similarly aims to bring viewers in. With the constant onslaught of information in the world right now, she finds it almost a radical act to simply ask someone to be present.
Gewirtzman’s frankness and openness are part of why she’s so successful as a teacher, empowering beginners to try new things. In addition to working with her interior design students, she also puts on workshops for a local non-profit and teaches private students. She primarily teaches nature-related classes and watercolor, insisting that with good instruction, beginners can do quite well.
To explore more of her work, head to Aliyana.co.