Statement/Quotes
2012
Artist Statement
In both my drawings and paintings, I work responsively, constantly altering relationships and exploring contingencies in a process of accumulating, assembling and revising. In nature, the way organisms and systems seek alternative states of being by shifting slightly from a designated path is understood as the adjacent possible. I refer to this phenomenon of mutability by arranging and rearranging relationships in my paintings to uncover unexpected anomalies. As I adjust one relationship, another slips out of balance. Overlaying, abrading, reconfiguring, and repeatedly repainting and revarnishing create slippage between the past, present and future, as accidents and change remain visible in each work. Although abstract, the work comes out of a personal awareness of the complexity, subtleties and coincidences of being in the world.
In the drawing series, LifeLike, I manipulate powdered graphite on sheets of mylar through a process of documenting what I imagine I see as the velvety material is spread, painted, blown, erased, wiped and smudged. While the results are fictitious, the concreteness of the illusion I conjure up blurs boundaries between documenting nature and inventing nature. The uncertainty between the two raises questions about what we identify as natural and as credible. Despite the accidental way I search for signs of life in the smears, the botanical/biological forms acquire the irregularities, complexities and beauty of the natural world. Each drawing is named through a similar process: a piecemeal soldering of fragments of sounds and grammatical parts to construct a whole.
Quotes
"Mystery floats in and out of the smoky creatures that Deborah Zlotsky conjures out of powdered graphite. Her beasts are simultaneously horrifying and sexy as they come into being out of some fertile mist fueled by our fears and anxieties. Or are they playful and celebratory of under appreciated aspects of our real bodies? Are we looking at something microscopic that is swirling around inside us, or are we witness to the birth of some new organism that will grow to take over the world?"
Ian Berry, Associate Director and Malloy Curator at the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, from the Juror’s statement for the Fence Show Select at the Arts Center for the Capital Region, Troy, NY July 2010
Deborah Zlotsky submitted a remarkable work to the current exhibition that is clearly smudges of carbon dust on a white background, yet conjures something vegetanimal, vaguely creepy, and surely alive.
Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director, Brooklyn Museum, from the Juror’s Statement for the Mohawk-Hudson Regional at The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY October 2010
"Deborah Zlotsky submitted a remarkable work to the current exhibition that is clearly smudges of carbon dust on a white background, yet conjures something vegetanimal, vaguely creepy, and surely alive."
Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director, Brooklyn Museum, from the Juror’s Statement for the Mohawk-Hudson Regional at The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY October 2010
In both my drawings and paintings, I work responsively, constantly altering relationships and exploring contingencies in a process of accumulating, assembling and revising. In nature, the way organisms and systems seek alternative states of being by shifting slightly from a designated path is understood as the adjacent possible. I refer to this phenomenon of mutability by arranging and rearranging relationships in my paintings to uncover unexpected anomalies. As I adjust one relationship, another slips out of balance. Overlaying, abrading, reconfiguring, and repeatedly repainting and revarnishing create slippage between the past, present and future, as accidents and change remain visible in each work. Although abstract, the work comes out of a personal awareness of the complexity, subtleties and coincidences of being in the world.
In the drawing series, LifeLike, I manipulate powdered graphite on sheets of mylar through a process of documenting what I imagine I see as the velvety material is spread, painted, blown, erased, wiped and smudged. While the results are fictitious, the concreteness of the illusion I conjure up blurs boundaries between documenting nature and inventing nature. The uncertainty between the two raises questions about what we identify as natural and as credible. Despite the accidental way I search for signs of life in the smears, the botanical/biological forms acquire the irregularities, complexities and beauty of the natural world. Each drawing is named through a similar process: a piecemeal soldering of fragments of sounds and grammatical parts to construct a whole.
Quotes
"Mystery floats in and out of the smoky creatures that Deborah Zlotsky conjures out of powdered graphite. Her beasts are simultaneously horrifying and sexy as they come into being out of some fertile mist fueled by our fears and anxieties. Or are they playful and celebratory of under appreciated aspects of our real bodies? Are we looking at something microscopic that is swirling around inside us, or are we witness to the birth of some new organism that will grow to take over the world?"
Ian Berry, Associate Director and Malloy Curator at the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, from the Juror’s statement for the Fence Show Select at the Arts Center for the Capital Region, Troy, NY July 2010
Deborah Zlotsky submitted a remarkable work to the current exhibition that is clearly smudges of carbon dust on a white background, yet conjures something vegetanimal, vaguely creepy, and surely alive.
Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director, Brooklyn Museum, from the Juror’s Statement for the Mohawk-Hudson Regional at The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY October 2010
"Deborah Zlotsky submitted a remarkable work to the current exhibition that is clearly smudges of carbon dust on a white background, yet conjures something vegetanimal, vaguely creepy, and surely alive."
Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director, Brooklyn Museum, from the Juror’s Statement for the Mohawk-Hudson Regional at The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY October 2010
