Pictured: Into The Blues opens 6:00pm, March 3rd. Courtesy of Dasha Reich.

Nowadays, cold plunges are all the rage. Everybody from your sister to your grandmother seems to be taking part in the health challenge – submerging themselves into ice cold water for seconds or even minutes at a time. For contemporary abstract resin artist Dasha Reich, it felt only natural to take a cold plunge of her own, albeit an artistic one, from working with warmer color palettes to exploring the cold tones of blue, with her new show, Into The Blues. “I specifically titled the show Into The Blues, because blue is not my favorite color at all,” says Reich. `However, I know that it is a very popular color so I said to myself, ‘you might not like the color but let's see what you can do with it.’ That was the whole idea, to challenge myself as an artist.”

Although Reich, who prefers working with a warmer color palette of reds, yellows, and oranges, may not have been blue’s biggest fan, it doesn’t make the results any less extraordinary. Her paintings in Into The Blues are still made from her trademark mix of pure pigments and epoxy resins – the combination of which gives an abstract, dream-like feel to her work. With the exploration of colder color palettes in Into The Blues, some of the swirling patterns that abound in Reich’s work appear almost reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, some 134-odd years later. “At first, the process was a little painful. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, my comfort zone being bright warm colors, but it was a really good challenge and I’m happy with the result,” says Reich with a laugh. “I’ve found that I prefer working with the darker shades of blue and it makes me feel like we’re in Siberia, under the ocean.”

Grand Opening at 6:00pm, March 3rd, 530 Burns Gallery, 530 Burns Ct, Sarasota.

Pictured: Into The Blues opens 6:00pm, March 3rd. Courtesy of Dasha Reich.

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