Zeuxis: Reflections

Exhibition Dates: January 2 - 26, 2013

Reception: Thursday, January 3, 6 to 8 pm

Zeuxis is a grassroots organization of painters formed in 1995 to explore the contemporary possibilities of the still life. For their latest exhibition titled Reflections, Zeuxis artists and their guests have agreed to produce still lifes incorporating a reflecting object. The nature of reflection - its surface (likely a mirror, though possibly glass or silverware) and the image reflected (still life objects, a window, or even a self portrait) - was determined by each individual artist. Reflections have long intrigued painters, and served them in various ways. Jan van Eyck, for his own mysterious purposes, famously placed a convex mirror in the background of his double portrait The Arnolfini Wedding (1434). The Dutch still life painter Pieter Claesz conjured images of worldly opulence in the minutely rendered reflections of silver and glassware. In his celebrated Las Meninas (1656), Velázquez framed King Philip IV and his queen in another mirror, placing them at a poignant remove from the lively exchange amongst the other figures. In modern times, Bonnard and Matisse employed the worlds-within-worlds of mirrors to dramatize the visual paradoxes and dramas of light and space. And spanning these eras is another, enduring characteristic. It symbolizes the inquiry behind the act of painting – itself a reflection, invariably, of an individual’s encounter with the human experience. The exhibition includes work by Zeuxis artists Rita Baragona, William Barnes, Temma Bell, Susan Cohen, Phyllis Floyd, Stanley Friedman, John Goodrich, Christine Hartman, Robert Jessel, Tim Kennedy, Deborah Kirklin, Carmela Kolman, Richard La Presti, Ginger Levant, Ying Li, Sydney Licht, Anthony Martino, Margaret McCann, Ruth Miller, Janice Nowinski, Stephanie Sanchez, Sandra Stone, Gwen Strahle, Amy Weiskopf, and Megan Williamson and guest artists Lois Dodd, Nancy Grimes, Nancy Hagin, Albert Kresch, Marion Lerner-Levine, George Nick, Susannah Phillips, and Susan Jane Walp. Reflections will be accompanied by a 36 page full color catalog with essay by William Corbett.