Robert Zakanitch “In the Garden of the Moon”
Nancy Hoffman Gallery
This event has ended.
On January 28, an exhibition of new work by Robert Zakanitch opens at Nancy Hoffman Gallery. Entitled “In the Garden of the Moon,” the show includes large and small gouache paintings on paper, inspired by the magic and romance of the night. The show continues through March 5, and is a celebration of the Pomegranate publication “Robert Rahway Zakanitch,” the first monograph on the artist, tracing his evolution from the ‘70s as the strongest voice in the Pattern and Decoration movement, to the work of today.
Zakanitch writes:
“I want to bring romance back into painting, and in this series the timeless enchantment of the moon and the night. Night vividly reveals the immensity, that we are all part of, with stars, galaxies, and universes flowing flawlessly—all inter-related.”
Following his lush “Hanging Gardens” series inspired by the gardens of Babylon, Zakanitch embarked on an entirely new body of work. During the three years he painted the “hanging gardens,” the artist moved from his long-term Brooklyn home and studio to Yonkers, where he now lives facing a garden with a view of the night sky, stars, and moon. Nature is at his front door and permeates his home and studio. A floor to ceiling studio window is filled with light in the day facing the Phillipse Manor garden, and filled with the mysteries of the night as the sun sets and darkness descends over the town. These are not “representational” paintings of the night; these are visionary interpretations of the sensation of night, night light, with different deep blues, loons and owls, and golden fish. The moon and clouds are primary players in the drama that unfolds in each painting, one of the most dramatic works being “Over the Clouds” in which the profusion of stars and galaxies, and sparkling constellations occupy the entire top half of the work, balanced by hovering vaporous clouds below.
Trying to grasp the immensity of the universe in painting, Zakanitch creates poetry and music in gouache. These are stylized paintings, perhaps owing a small debt to Chinese, Japanese or Russian painting, and maybe even illuminated manuscripts, not to mention 1945 Armstrong linoleum. Zakanitch’s stylization is part of his on-going vocabulary and commitment to ornamentation as language. His love of ornamentation shimmers in pearl-like borders. The invented patterns at the bottom of each painting function as “anchors,” and remind us how beautiful the gesture of mark making can be.
“In the Garden of the Moon” Zakanitch dares to bring back romance in “moonscapes,” that are not simply landscapes, but mindscapes about light. Gouache is never used in heroic scale, rarely is the viewer privileged to feel the artist’s hand as it is felt in this series. These are paintings about “beauty and sumptuousness and life force, about the beautiful music of humanity,” as the artist says. This is a new era for the artist, an era of luminosity and visual poetry addressing the immensity of the universe and man’s relationship to it.
Media
Schedule
from January 28, 2016 to March 05, 2016
Opening Reception on 2016-01-28 from 18:00 to 20:00