Tomato

Allie Kushnir
2023
Men’s Large
Hand-stitched embroidery

Allie Kushnir
2023
Women’s Medium
Hand-stitched embroidery

Allie Kushnir
2023
Women’s Extra Small 
Hand-stitched embroidery

About the artist

Chicago-based artist Allie Kushnir uses her work to investigate the relationship between body and setting, individuals to nature.

When embarking on the development of a new composition, Kushnir often begins with an exploration into our environment and its reciprocal influence on its inhabitants. Day to day, she makes a concentrated effort to acknowledge the spaces we take up, the state of mind we hold, and the effects of such conditions.

Kushnir's abstract watercolor work developed through an intuitive approach to mark-making, much of it involving a layering of organic forms, meandering lines, and fluid bodies of paint. However, time has proven the impossibility of a singularly focused form of expression. The need is to create. Abstract paintings have evolved into more dimensional sculptural work and furniture design. At the same time, her oil paintings have remained more visually refined representations of floral still lives; playing off of wild, oddly cast shapes created by light and shadow.

Kushnir finds inspiration in the various fallibilities that make us human. Ultimately, Allie's intention in life and in her work is to find ways to encourage a broader understanding of how we as individuals are part of something larger, influencing our environment at a scale that many of us don't tend to recognize.