Theo Baransky

Theo Baransky b. 2003, Ithaca, NY) is a painter based in Milford, New Jersey. Alongside his painting practice, Baransky hosts an interview series with people in the film industry. He loves cats.

Baransky's work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Beauty Gallery, NJ, and White Columns, NY, as well as group exhibitions at Open Invitational, FL, Julie Casemore Gallery, CA, NADA, NY, and Fierman, NY.

About Baransky’s work

Baransky's practice largely orbits around a fervent interest in film production and distribution, and the work draws from an extensive collection of researched images as well as his own fastidious memory. They are small-scale works in which a floating sign is held before us in air. Often symmetrical or nearly so, they call to mind ritual objects or the symbols that bring about magic (as in the magical light of a movie). The paintings are focused on the moment of expectation just before the feature presentation takes the stage; they infer both the soaring moment of pleasure that happens before watching a good and perhaps oft-returned-to movie (an affect captured so well by the music accompanying these logos), as well as the power structures which finance, shape, and mediate movie production and, so, movie reception to what degree this is possible. As sigils they locate us at the precipice of something which promises (and at times delivers) immersion, wonder, splendor, excitement, a role model, heartbreak, a vision of ourselves at our best and worst, the letters of which spell the names of corporate entities whose objectives also include such mundane violences as the operation, consolidation, and expansion of hegemonic power via the portals of representation and storytelling. The grand edifices, heroic animals, spotlit chrome letters, gods, goddesses, and skyscrapers that tend to feature in the logos of Baransky's time period of interest are here rendered in the familiar, gentle tones of a much touched pebble, the intimate scale and tender, searching brushwork bringing us towards a reception of the grandiose and operatic as friendly, tended to, companionable.

Alongside his painting practice, Baransky hosts an interview series with people in the film industry which can be viewed on Studio Route 29’s YouTube Channel.