EXPLORING PERSONAL STORIES OF IMMIGRATION THROUGH ART
Written By Eric Gallippo

City Pulse, MI
Jan 18 2007

Russian-born painter avoids politics to focus on the emotions that
come with finding a new home.

"Immigration: Aesthetic of Exile" by Alina Poroshina
On exhibit through Jan. 30
Lansing Art Gallery, 113 S. Washington Square, Lansing
(517) 374-6400

When Alina Poroshina was a girl in Moscow, she says she had many
toys. At age 10 she left them behind to move with her family to
Lansing.

The 25-year-old painter and graduate student at Kendall College of
Art and Design in Grand Rapids has since given up on gathering objects
to focus on forming relationships with people and visiting new places.

"Experiences and memories are all you really have," Poroshina says.

"It’s like your luggage. Don’t collect anything. Just travel."

It is this "luggage" that inspires Poroshina to paint.

Below the surface: Poroshina’s "Inamorta I" (oil on canvas) is part
of a series of paintings the Russian-born artist did portraying women
in water on display at Lansing Art Gallery.

In her latest show, "Immigration: Aesthetic of Exile," on exhibit at
the Lansing Art Gallery, Poroshina takes a look beneath the surface
of the subjects of her large oil paintings to give an impression of
the often complex emotional baggage that comes with being an immigrant
to the United States.

Through the use of bold, bright colors, unrefined brushstrokes and
symbolic gestures, Poroshina conveys the full spectrum of emotions
connected to the immigrant experience – hope, anxiety, nostalgia,
naivety, fear and acceptance, in a style she calls "expressive
realism."

Rather than delving into political themes of globalization and
immigration, Poroshina concentrates on personal struggles.

Acclimating to American culture takes a different toll on everyone,
she says.

"You think there is no culture here, and there is," she says.

In one painting, "Culture Bound," she paints herself as an Orthodox
Russian woman, covered in a traditional shawl. In the next, "Looking
West," she stands on top of a building, shedding a red shawl, poised
to take on her new home.

The first painting represents Poroshina as a girl in Moscow, she
says. The second is the grown woman "melodramatically" embracing
the present.

For some, leaving their homeland can be heartbreaking, Poroshina
explains. Even within the United States, she says, people who relocate
across the country must learn a new culture.

"We all go through change, and you don’t have to be an immigrant to
do that," she says.

All of the pieces focus on human subjects, many of whom are interacting
with some kind of bird or animal, which the artist uses to play on
the viewer’s perceptions.

"Animals have such typical stereotypes connected to them," she says.

Cranes and hawks in flight, rats and parrots in hand, eels peering
from beneath the water – each animal brings another preconceived
notion of what the subject is experiencing as the viewer projects
ideas of freedom, longing and feeling unwanted onto them.

"I’ve mostly followed my own symbolism," Poroshina says.

In one series of paintings featuring women in water, Poroshina strays
from focusing solely on immigration to also explore feminist ideas
and what it means being a woman in a new country.

To get the images she needed to create the paintings, she says she
was nearly arrested for indecent exposure, because the models entered
public waters wearing only slips.

Poroshina’s family, now living in Grand Ledge, settled in Lansing to be
"close to the lakes," she says. It considered Washington State, but
chose Michigan, because it was closer to the East Coast, where there
is a larger Russian population. Poroshina attended Patengill Middle
School and graduated from East Lansing High before going on to Kendall
for her undergraduate studies. She hopes one day to be a professor.

Though she focuses on her Russian experience, Poroshina says, she
hopes through her work to be an "agent of all ethnicity."

And it may not be too difficult for her. As a Russian Armenian,
Poroshina says many people are confused about where she comes from,
which has led to her being identified as many different nationalities
over the years, such as Mexican and Italian.

"I should be a spy, really," she says.