Neal Tolunsky (USA)
Objective
I am passionate about art, art history and am interested in a career in museums. My goal is to gain exposure and experience in the fields above.
Education
Bard College
2018 – Present
- Major in Written Arts, and Minor in Film
- GPA 3.60
Horace Mann High School
2014 – 2018
Experience
Archives Intern | YIVO Institute, New York (Summer, 2019)
Archival work; translated into English and summarized several Russian diaries from the early 20th century
Board of Advisors | Museum of Russian Art, Jersey City, New Jersey (2017-Present)
Writer for exhibits, invitations, artist bios, and catalog
Film Editor | Margo Show on Time Warner Cable (2017-Present)
Editor and green screen work for TV episodes of Margo Show (interviews with artists and musicians)
Founder and Editor-in-Chief | High School Philosophy Magazine 42 (2016-2018)
Organized, edited, and wrote for the publication
Assistant Director | Production of Sophocles’ Electra at Bard College (2018)
Artist | Participated in art exhibits (2018-2020)
Exhibited work at Museum of Russian Art, Ender Gallery (New York, NY), Margo Gallery (New York, NY)
Organizer, Cofounder of Kierkegaard Book Club | Bard College (2019-2020)
Skills
- Camera skills
- Strong writing skills
- Film editing and green screen work with Premiere Pro
- Fluent in Russian and working knowledge of Spanish
Activities
- Filmmaking in high school and college
- Tennis Team | Bard College
- Piano player, music composition
- Translated Russian children’s book, currently being published
- Georgian Choir Singer | Bard College
- Mountaineering Club Member | Bard College
- Co-Head of Architecture Club | Bard College
Artist’s Statement
As an artist, Tolunsky strives to distill an experience or a feeling, something necessarily beyond words; he hopes that what should become clear through his work is something like the shape of his soul or some aspect of the spirit not immediately accessible to everyone in their daily life. A good painting, in his mind, should touch someone in some place they may recognize in themselves but do not know. It is a question equally of discovery as of synthesis, or rather these things, by their very nature, should happen simultaneously.
In his work “Flowers in Snow”—Neal admitted in an interview that he mostly finds titles to be a nuisance—one is introduced to another world; there is a sense of a different natural landscape, and also a suggestion of industry (an iron grating, a rote repetition), of something dark and inky and yet peaceful and light. Metaphysical gravity coexists simultaneously with a delight in the surface of things. In “Outer Space,” one is moored on some kind of strange island in space, like a planet from “Le Petit Prince,” a place inhabited by upside down sheep, homes housing triangles, dead trees etc. Is it a prison or a place of freedom? Perhaps both at once. Tolunsky finds incredible depth and wisdom in shapes; they say things to him but he does not know what. He believes, as do the Jewish Kabbalists, in symbols in the deepest sense, that is, something which is so deep it corresponds to absolutely nothing and cannot be understood. This is, Tolunsky sets out to show in his work, the nature of life itself: an endless undifferentiated series of such symbols.
