On Friday, May 4 Alex and I attended a show of new works by artist Patty Zuver.
The series, called Thoughts on Death and Life and the fluid nature of one into the other, is a reflection not only on the larger forces of nature as indicated by the title, but also upon the factors that define for each of us our unique sense of ‘home’.
Ms. Zuver was raised in Washington, D.C. She was educated in Virginia and England, and much of her previous work focused on the stark yet brilliant colours of the Adirondack mountain ranges.
Her latest series shows her love of the Mountain State in another light. Instead of the splays of blue, white and red that were the earmark of Ms. Zuver’s earlier Adirondack pieces, the viewer is invited to pause in the presence of this new work and to share a moment of spiritual grace with the artist.
Painted solely in black using pastel on paper, the works are large, filling the eye with serenity. Despite the dramatic contrasts created by Ms. Zuver’s colour choice, the effect is not in the least morbid, but rather it is strangely reassuring. One is comforted by the notion that Death and Life are indeed only small parts of a much larger circle, and that ‘distance’ can never erase the ties that bind us to our memory of home.
Created shortly after the death of her mother, these pieces are a tribute to the good things that we are taught in childhood: the tree that grows in our mother’s yard is indeed timeless; the river that runs alongside the mountain carries with it the elusive meaning of life.
This series raises Ms. Zuver’s work above the ordinary, thanks in large part to her courageous break from the traditional styles of landscape. Its accessible quality is also due to its deeply emotional message. We find ourselves thinking about individual pieces long after we have seen them, and the artist’s sense of stillness remains with us.
In her own words, Ms. Zuver speaks about the motivation for this series:
This series of drawings was started this past October when I rented a cabin in the woods in the mountains of Virginia. My mother had a serious fall a few days before I arrived and as a result, my week was consumed by daily drives from Syria, Virginia to Charlottesville where she lived.
I grew up in Virginia and, as always, when I return and look at that landscape I am amazed by all that is hidden in the tangled mess that is the flora there. The vines, the fallen trees, the constant buzz of the insects and chatter of the birds. On long walks, I was taken aback by all the dead things I saw: deer, turtles, frogs, snakes, birds. And yet, springing from these dead forms were objects of intense beauty: scarlet vines, iridescent insects, beautiful fungus. Life and death are not separated in the south- one springs clearly from the other.
All that was surrounding me echoed what I was seeing inside: Life, even when it appears to be neat and quiet is never far from the disruption of death and the explosion of birth. The messiness is always there, just beneath the surface. But from this messiness springs beauty, from discomfort springs change, from death springs life.
My mother died just before I started to work on these drawings, so the images are tangled with intense feelings of grief: for a mother, for a past, for a place of belonging. With her death, I lost my last parent and one last connection to home. With these drawings, I am exploring the turmoil caused by losing two of the foundations of life: Family and Home
Interview with the artist:
Q: As a wife and the mother of a young family, many readers will no doubt be asking themselves how you can be so productive as an artist. How do you maintain the necessary discipline?
A: By nature, I’m not a very disciplined person, so I usually have to impose some sort of discipline on myself. I have three kids and a partner who travels quite a lot, so it can be very difficult to find the time to get work done. What I have found works best for me is to get away- rent a house or studio that I can go to for a week or two and work very intensely- that way, I’m not having to carve out time for myself between the laundry, the cooking, the soccer games, etc. For this series of drawings, I went down to Virginia for a week and stayed in a cabin in the mountains by myself- I took four-hour-long walks to get into that headspace that’s necessary (for me) to open yourself up to create. When I worked on the actual drawings, I was at Gibraltar Centre for the Arts on Toronto Island where I had an amazing studio and small bedroom for about two months. I would try to spend three or four days there every week- again, the only way for me to get that level of intensity…I’ve never been one of those people who can drop the kids off at school and go work for two hours (I wish I could be…). When I do work at home, I simply have to put blinders on to not see the mounds of laundry or the kitchen table that’s covered in dirty dishes. In addition to all of this, I have the incredible fortune of being married to a man who is very supportive both emotionally AND logistically- in other words, he will pick the children up from school, cook dinner, do laundry etc. when I’m working.
Q: Your mother has had a profound influence on your creative expression. Is there a message in your work that you would hope to pass down to your own children?
A: I’m not sure if there’s a message IN my work as much as there’s a message WITH my work that I would hope they get- That is, to find your passion and to work with it. It’s not important to me for my kids to be “successful”- it’s important to me that they figure out what they love to do and to spend their lives doing it. I think that’s something that I got from my mother.
Q: In the piece titled Something Hidden, Something Revealed, the viewer is mystified by the movement of light and shadow across the mountain. How did you create such a profound stillness? What kind of brushes did you use for this and how did you prepare your colour?
A: To be honest with you, when I went to Gibraltar Point right after my mother died, my idea was to do four large paintings of rocks in water….but I kept coming back to these pinhole images that I had taken while I was in Virginia. I loved the murky, swampy feeling of them and I decided to experiment a little with trying to re-create that feeling of an old, hacked-up photograph. I just stumbled on the black pastel because that was the only drawing medium that I had with me. I painted my paper with turpentine and drew right onto the wet paper and just loved the richness that that gave me. It was something very different than what I have been doing for the past 15 years and I was pretty surprised by it- it sort of brought me back to the printmaking work I used to do and I realize that I have essentially done a series of lithographs with out the stones…
I didn’t even touch my paint the entire time I was at the Island.
Q: The twin ‘tree’ pieces titled Measurement of Time are my personal favourites. They immediately draw the viewer into a joyous sense of home, yet there is also the overriding sadness of knowing that this ‘home’ lives only in memory. Can you describe the spiritual concept or emotion that lies behind these pieces?
A: Well, I think you got it exactly right- this whole series is dealing with that elusive notion of “home” and what that means. That, really, it’s an idea that can only live in our memory and yet it’s something that defines us so strongly. As I was making these drawings, I was dealing with the loss of my mother (one of my last connections to Virginia), the loss of my last parent, and the dissolution of one of my oldest friendships (another last connection to Virginia). While I feel less and less “at home” every time I go to Virginia, I still react viscerally to the landscape there in a way I don’t anywhere else in the world. I hope that in some small way I translated that love of the land and all those conflicted emotions in these pieces.
Painter Patty Zuver grew up in Washington, D.C. She was educated in Virginia and England in Painting and Printmaking. She has exhibited in the U.S., England and Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada.
