Suara Welitoff

One of the great advantages to collecting the works of living artists is that sometimes, if you're lucky, you can spend some one-on-one personal time with them. It's a terrific opporunity and way to watch the growth of the artists, firsthand. This past weekend, the Boston Print Collectors and friends, were able to enjoy a Friday night cocktail reception with Suara Welitoff in attendance. Suara creates stills from video for prints as well as digital videos, this last form of art was unveiled at the home of private collectors. Suara was gracious is talking about her work and seemed to enjoy spending time with young collectors. She is currently represented by the Barbara Krakow Gallery on Newbury Street.

Suara Welitoff at Barbara Krakow

On October 2, the Barbara Krakow Gallery held a special event for those of us who had supported the MFA Counsel’s Summer P(art)y by purchasing the benefit by Suara Welitoff. Suara, who we had a chance to see last year at Alston Skirt Gallery, has been picked up by Barbara Krakow. We had the opportunity to hear from Suara and view a dozen of her video works. Her

works include videos that she shot herself, as well as works based off of found footage. Her works were included in the MFA’s exhibition War and Discontent in 2007. In fact, Suara’s works make up 3 out of the 6 video works in the MFA’s contemporary collection. One of the MFA works, “Say Yes” was a crowd favorite. Some of her works are entirely silent. Several of these which include war or military images are especially eerie without sound. Suara has paired others, including “Tell Me” with music which in some cases makes them seem overly sentimental. Suara explained that she doesn’t start out with a plan for including or excluding sound or music, but rather experiments with several options to determine if the audio adds to the composition. Another crowd favorite was Lasts Longer, 2008, which although only 1 minute 46 seconds, includes a complexity of motion and design which makes it feel substantially longer. The scene -- a photographer shooting photos of a model-like women invokes a feeling of being in Warhol's Factory. Not surprisingly, Wharhol is one of Suara's inspirations

Thanks to Suara, William Stover and the Barbara Krakow gallery for this amazing opportunity.