August 13 - September 21 2022

Jo Zider: Earth at the Edge

An exhibition of relief paintings.

The show is divided into two categories:

Category one in the side room will show the beginning work of designing the Archetypal figures of GRIEF, BLAME and HOPE and transitional works, illustrating the pattern work and expanding the image to a fuller canvas.

The second category and embodying the main theme of the show, EARTH AT THE EDGE, will be twelve relief paintings which attempt to bring attention to climate change and its devastating effect on our existence on earth.

To understand the concept of relief paintings, one must consider the layered process of their creation. Begun in the early 1990’s, developed directly from performance sketches in Tokyo Theatre, the substructures are 3” deep archival paper pulp castings of three-fourths life size kabuki figures: my archetypal representations of GRIEF, BLAME, and HOPE. The over-painting of these castings brings the imagery from eighteenth century traditional storey characters, up to their contemporary equals, where I deal with threats to man’s social and environmental well-being. The archetypal characters from the 1700’s, about whom Chikamatsu wrote in his classic Kabuki plays, were disguised by centuries and names, (or he would have lost his head). My protest, my activism is guised in the visual arts.

In the over-painted images, we are witness to crisis after crisis for our water, our air, our energy resources and our earth. These crises call for sustainable solutions. We are GRIEVED by the rapidly declining environment; results of catastrophic events of altered nature. There are known entities of BLAME, (the daily abuse of earth’s resources). There is HOPE, however, in the efforts many are now making to change the direction of human involvement.

Learn more about Jo Zider at jozider.com.

Artist's Reception: August 13 2022, from 5 - 7 pm.