Image: Kutlesa, Goldau
‘Oblivion Blues,’ an exhibition of new works by Oakland-based artist Yulia Pinkusevich, opens at Kutlesa New York on September 24 and runs through November 7, 2026. The exhibition is Pinkusevich’s first solo show with the gallery since she joined.
Pinkusevich’s paintings originate in the isorithm, a geometric method developed in the context of civil defense to map the effects of an explosive event across inhabited terrain. The diagrams translate destruction into lines, distances and concentric fields, while related maps created through Geographic Information System (GIS), in collaboration with Northeastern University Professor of Public Policy Mark Henderson, combine population and geographical data with contemporary global conflict into precise spatial structures.
In ‘Oblivion Blues,’ Pinkusevich transforms this rational language through drawing and painting into expansive and highly charged compositions. She also transforms systems of calculation into materially complex paintings, turning information into sensation and measurement into memory.
The exhibition incorporates historic wallpaper images drawn from archival material documenting declassified CIA reconnaissance missions and aerial bombing campaigns from the 1940s and subsequent decades. Pinkusevich encountered these images while researching as a Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Across the paintings, concentric forms may evoke maps, planetary systems, cellular structures or atmospheric phenomena, while their lines and coordinates correspond to real places and events without depicting violence directly. Mirrored glass embedded within several works reflects fragments of the surrounding architecture and, at times, the viewer’s own image, making the observer part of the work.
