To Be Killed and Be Still
Ilana Zweschi graduated from Skidmore College as an Art Major/Mathematics Minor (2011) and earned an MFA in painting from SUNY Albany (2014). Zweschi has exhibited expansively, recently completing a large-scale commission for the Meta Open Arts Program, is part of the Microsoft Art Collection, and received the Dashboard DASH artist grant for 2022. Her work has been published in New American Paintings, and featured on the opening page of the Culture section of Seattle Met in 2020.
Using political texts such as propaganda, Zweschi inputs the raw data of the harmful messages into an algorithm and runs it through a series of "if/then" rules that she assigns based on the structure and grammar of the written words. From this data, she "receives an output of painterly actions that direct her composition and sense of color." As she explains, “The resulting painting could not exist without the original or altered text.”
To Be Killed and be Still is a triptych with left panel measuring 63.75"(h) x 32.125"(w); center panel, 63.75"(h) x 48.125"(w); right panel: 63.75"(h) x 32"(w) inches.