Traversing dream boundaries

The art of Alice Zinnes comes to DVAA

NARROWSBURG, NY — An exhibit of paintings by Alice Zinnes titled “Rama’s Light: Paintings” will be shown at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance Gallery on Main Street from October 7 through October 27. An opening reception will be held from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on October 7.

After 15 years spent painting from direct observation, including a series of landscapes of Wayne County, PA, Zinnes turned to abstract expressions provoked by poems and stories. Her current paintings are not illustrations or literal translations, but transformations from poetry to mysterious landscapes of a dream world inhabited by figure, animal and birdlike images. “These paintings suggest that the boundaries between the underworld and waking life are traversable, that terror coexists with joy, and that loss yields to renewal,” said Zinnes. “In them, the very sky descends to occupy the ground as fog, and then rises back to its rightful place; tunnels simultaneously lead downward to a dark center, and offer an opening and escape to the bright air above.”

Created with a palette knife, the texture ranges from impasto to translucent glaze, from areas scratched out to lines fluidly drawn in.

Zinnes has had five solo exhibitions in New York City, including a 25-year retrospective at The Art Center at Queens College (November—December 2002). She has been reviewed in The New York Times, New York Newsday, New York Arts Magazine and other major publications. She has received awards from the National Academy of Design and fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Arts and the Cummington Community for the Arts.

Zinnes, who teaches at Pratt Art Institute and New York City Technical College, CUNY, spends her summers in Milanville, PA, and splits her time between Milanville and Brooklyn during the school year.