About this Event
This spring Merge will present 'Fear Not' selected works 1984-2021 from Stephen Zaima, an artist and educator who lives in the Hudson Valley. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to present the work of a local artist. The exhibition is free and open to the public.
Exhibition Dates:
May 28, 2022 - June 5, 2022
11 am - 5 pm Daily
Free & Open to the Public
Merge:
178 Schoonmaker Lane
Stone Ridge, NY 12484
Merge is an alternative art space in the Hudson Valley that supports artists by providing a platform to encourage discussion, collaboration and community in a rural landscape of restored historical farm outbuildings.
The exhibition will bring together work showcasing Zaima's explorations in a wide variety of mediums and techniques, spanning over the last four decades; oil painting on linen, paper, wood, and jute. His palette extends to mixed media collages, installations on scrim, and dye sublimation photos on aluminum. In the artist's own words, "my paintings often depict a space in which the boundary between the real and the imaginary is blurred and images and symbols take on new meanings.
The curators, Reinhold Spiegler and Lisette Wong, take the opportunity, in contrast to the neutral white box, to fold the work into the variety of barn spaces and landscape, an additional dialectical layer to Zaima's works, which are often deep in space, have recurring motifs, are assemblages and layered collages, or installations which engage in the environment around them. This re-presentation of his work strives toward the spirit of Zaima's favorite quote from Francis Picabia, "Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction.” This retrospective of selected works spanning from 1984-2021 will display the breadth of an artist who is neither confined to a box in definitions, approaches, or medium.
Zaima is currently a professor emeritus at Syracuse University where he taught forty years both on campus and study abroad programs in London, Florence, and Berlin. During his time at the university, he also served as an Associate Dean of the College of Visual & Performing Arts from 2012 to 2017, painting program and Vision Artist Coordinator for the Department of Art from 2001 to 2012 and coordinator of studio art programs in London (1987) and Florence (1995-1998).
Zaima was born and raised in California and received his BA from California State University at San Jose and his MFA from the University of California at Davis, and further studies at the School of Visual Arts and Pratt in New York City. As a graduate student in art at Davis from 1969 to 1971, Zaima was taught by an eclectic faculty of influential working artists such as William T. Wiley, Robert Arneson, Roy DeForest, Manuel Neri, and Wayne Thiebaud, along with semester composer-in-residence John Cage. Significantly, there were not set disciplines, allowing students to explore different art forms and methods and installing in Zaima, a flexibility that allowed him to avoid being wedded to any particular style, method or approach to making art. As Zaima recalled, it was a heady time that he like to think of as a "Black Mountain College moment.
We are proud to present a local artist and invite the community to enjoy, participate, and engage in the events.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Merge, 178 Schoonmaker Ln, Stone Ridge, United States
USD 0.00
