Northeast Ohio based painter, Zinsmeister Parker’s amazing exhibit “Heavenly Bodies” closes this weekend with a party you do not want to miss. This is your last chance to see this wonderful exhibit, and while you are at it enjoy our wonderful cafe. The closing starts at 6pm, with an evening of new music by NO EXIT New Music Ensemble. You don’t want to miss this wonderful evening. Music starts at 8pm.
Below is Ms. Parker’s artist statement,
You think it horrible that lust and rage should dance attention upon my old age: William Butler Yeats.
In essence my paintings of the human figure over recent years have become an autobiographical odyssey of aging and change, both physical and psychological. The body of work which I have selected to exhibit at the Arts Collinwood gallery was executed in 1999, 2005 and 2010. I feel that the earlier pieces have aged rather well like good wine and deserve another exposure. The Venus de Milo suite was last shown in a solo show at the Massillon Museum, Massillon, Ohio in 1999 and in 2001 the same body of work was exhibited at the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts gallery in Oberlin, Ohio. When the University of Akron hosted a one person exhibition in 2005, several of the figure paintings in this installation were included. In addition, there are five new paintings on raw canvas and unframed. Because the works on paper serve as a chronicle for the evolution of my figure studies, I thought they would be of interest to the viewers therefore I have included a selection of drawings.
Over the last two decades, I have abandoned the male form completely as subject matter and concentrated on drawing the female body in all its decrepitude and corpulence on full display. The act of drawing is intrinsic to all visual art disciplines and to express oneself through the basic mediums of paper and pencil or paint and canvas is to penetrate an interior, subconscious existence–one that is uncharted yet rich in creative discovery. For this artist, drawing the most challenging of subject matters, the human figure, has become a life long passion and one that continues to engage me in new and innovative ways. An early influence and someone who taught me how to look for the outline of a pose and then to develop the anatomical parts within that space was Paul Travis, teacher extraordinaire who taught life drawing at the Cleveland Institute of Art for decades. I‘m sure that I was only one of an army of students studying at the Institute back in the 50’s who felt the pull of his personality and the philosophical approach to the study of the human form which he projected.
Another gifted teacher who influenced my love of life drawing was Dwight Mutchler who taught at Ohio University. As the recipient of the ‘’Outstanding Freshman Artist’’ award at O.U., Mutchler inspired me to master the physical components of anatomy which I did and having accomplished that task I then experimented with a more expressionistic and personal connection to the human figure.
I would be remiss not to mention the overtones of feminism which are manifest not only in the work but in the titles which reflect my position on the subject. As a woman, as a painter and educator, my perspective is colored by my experiences in the world of academia and in the art world at large. Some of the figures have dismembered or missing various body parts, which symbolize a sense of alienation or an awareness of gender bias, an intransigent status quo which has existed in the art world historically and even today —certainly in terms of the number of exhibitions for women artists versus male artists in the major museums in the United States. The good news is that women artists will always pursue their commitment to making art and eventually with the passage of time and a little luck, we’ll have achieved an even playing field.
Zinsmeister Parker
Painter
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