Jerry Zeniuk

Although Jerry Zeniuk’s variously colored dots, alternately outlined with woolly edges or sharply defined, seem to take center stage in this exhibition, the space in which they hover is equally important. The canvas in between the dots strangely defines the playful character of these paintings as much as the brightly hued oil orbs do.

His series of seven small canvases from 2014, called “Listen to Me Look at Me,” inspired by seven musical pieces composed, performed, and recorded especially for Zeniuk by the cellist Ernst Reijseger, form the focal point of this show. The artist initially tried but then failed to paint these works in pace with the music, and eventually let the music invoke within him a train of thought that would define each painting. The end results are decidedly not expressionist responses to the music, but are rather an analytical arrangement of colors complementing or contrasting with each other. This approach dates back to his monochrome work from the 1970s, in which he applied layers of paint in different colors right on top of each other. For the past few decades, though, Zeniuk has started to separate these colors and render them as isolated entities on the canvas. The artist has retained his methodical, careful planning, which is almost mathematic in regards to his exacting color choices, but through feathery brushstrokes and a spatial tension he manages to create paintings of a deeply sensitive nature.