TAMAR ZINN At the still point
March 31 - May 7, 2016 Kathryn Markel Fine Arts New York
At the still point 22, 2016
24 x 30� oil on dibond
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”
At the still point 7, 2015 24 x 20” oil on dibond
From the moment she heard these lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem, Burnt Norton, Tamar Zinn felt a strong affinity between the poem and her newest series of paintings. While indeterminacy—as opposed to certitude—has been a defining characteristic of both modern and contemporary art, Zinn’s paintings embrace both certainty and ambiguity while also pointing toward a third condition, best described by the Japanese concept of “mu,” or nothingness; neither here nor there, yes or no, good or bad, but a state in which dichotomies and polarities are suspended. Rather than a dormant or static condition, however, Eliot’s “still point” — as it is for Zinn — is a state in which questions remain open and opposing truths remain viable. The most outward manifestation of this quality in Zinn’s art is its contrast of painterly expanses and geometric counterpoints—black rectangles framing and reinforcing the edges— that fuse into intensely physical surfaces that can be as At the still point 20, 2016
36 x 23” oil on dibond
obdurate as marble, as atmospheric and light filled as the sky, or as literal as burnished layers of oil paint; and is often all three at once. Likewise, Zinn’s palette, which is tempting to describe as achromatic, gradually reveals color relationships that are subtle, radiant, and mercurial, arrived at through repeated application and removal of paint over long periods of time. It’s a cyclical process that is only complete when evidence of the artist’s hand is visible yet subsumed — once again — by a third condition, akin to a kind of alchemy, in which the painter’s materials are transformed into light, air, and matter while remaining entirely themselves.
At the still point 5, 2015
26 x 16” oil on dibond
More than abstractions of nature or the unconscious, they are paintings that are, in effect, abstractions of the ineffable, offering us a new experience that dances at the still point between making and finding, the literal and the metaphorical, the temporal and the timeless. —Mark Wethli
At the still point 4, 2015 20 x 16� oil on dibond
At the still point 17, 2016
30 x 24� oil on dibond
At the still point 23, 2016
30 x 38� oil on dibond
At the still point 1, 2015 20 x 16� oil on dibond
At the still point 21, 2016
36 x 23� oil on dibond
At the still point 9, 2015 16 x 13� oil on dibond
At the still point 6, 2015
24 x 20� oil on dibond
Tamar Zinn’s recent work has taken residence in the space between geometry and atmosphere. At the still point is her sixth solo exhibition with Kathryn Markel Fine Arts. Recent group exhibitions include: On Paper, Weathervane, Brooklyn; Humble Iterations, Markel Fine Arts, The Big Small Show, Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, Anonyme Ziechner 2015, Kunsteverein Tiergarten, Berlin; and Navigation Puzzle, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts. Her work is in collections throughout the United States, including Citibank, Fidelity, IBM, McKinsey & Co, NYU-Langone Medical Center, and Pfizer Corporation. Zinn’s commissions include works for MD Anderson Cancer Center and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Her work can be seen in online forums such as Geoform and The Painting Center, and she was featured in an interview on the 365artists/365days blog. Zinn blogs at tamarzinn.blogspot.com
At the still point 16, 2016 20 x 16” oil on dibond
KATHRYN MARKEL FINE ARTS www.markelfinearts.com 529 West 20th Street, New York 10011 212.366.5368