SARASOTA, FLA.- Since 2011, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art has sought to increase its presentation of work by contemporary artists through the Art of Our Time initiative. Order Systems, the solo debut of Canadian artist Natasha Mazurka, illustrates the Museum’s commitment to showing the work of living artists whose methods move beyond traditional practices.

Ottawa-based Mazurka debuts a new body of paintings, embossings and site-specific installations using textured layers of colored vinyl. Mazurka’s work revolves around patterns, and how they help us make sense of the world. The artist samples and combines visual references from a variety of areas, including architecture, biology, data analytics and instructional code. Through processes of manipulation and synthesis, her projects flatter and disturb the certainty and stability that patterns offer.

The exhibition is the first organized by Ola Wlusek in her role as the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda curator of modern and contemporary art at The Ringling and is on view in the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Gallery for Contemporary Art March 18-Sept. 8, 2019.

“We are delighted to welcome Natasha Mazurka for her U.S. solo debut,” said Wlusek. “Natasha questions how our aesthetic systems and social structures help us communicate. Her recent works indulge in the illusion of beauty that stems from repetition and a sense of order, but she challenges these patterns by inserting social narratives about conformity and imposed behavioral structures. We look forward to exploring these contradictions.”

Natasha Mazurka received a Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University and a Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University, where she was the recipient of the J.W. McConnell Fellowship. She has been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships, including the Brucebo Fine Art Residency in Gotland, Sweden, and the Vermont Studio Center Painting Fellowship and Residency. Her work can be found in the collections of the City of Ottawa public art collection, Foreign Affairs Canada, the Canadian Fine Art Collection of Gotland, Sweden, and in private/corporate collections in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Morocco.