Shana Zimmerman’s Artist Statement

Having grown up in and around New York City, I was immersed in what I

call the “peoplescapes” of city life. Because I was slow to acquire language

as a young dyslexic, I spent much of my childhood intently watching people

and their behaviors and reactions. An author employs language to convey

people’s inner nature. For me, it was always the iconic image of that inner

nature that I was driven to visually express. First I sketched people and by

12 years I was painting. I sold my first commissioned portrait at 14. I have

been painting primarily people during every stage of my life and there is

always something beautiful to see in the human spirit. I hope my paintings

remind people of that.

I draw inspiration from everyday living. To me, at the end of our lives the

most meaningful experiences will likely be those times that we have allowed

ourselves to be truly affected by the events of a given moment. I attempt to

capture the internal and external energy of these moments as I experience

them. For this reason, the subjects of my paintings are typically people

I know and interact with. Since it is so important for me to authentically

recreate the energy and intention of the work, I try to use every avenue

available to me – composition, paint application, color, and light. In other

words, every color is chosen and deliberately applied in a given way to

enhance the experience of the viewer to bring them into the moment the

painting represents. I believe the process of painting creates the statement of

the art as much as the actual subject matter.

Tucson is my everyday backdrop and therefore it provides the inspiration

for many of my paintings in this show. For example, The Green Room, is

inspired by the bar at Congress Hotel. The way the light from the window

reflects on the bar and envelops the woman sitting there really interested me.

The outer environment of light through the window into the darker lobby

meets her internal environment. I applied the paint to enhance the concept of

light and dark. Since the show is at Hotel Congress, I loved that I can exhibit

the actual painting in the very place that inspired it.

Joe’s Artist Statement

In many ways my art and my voracious appetite for life stem from my inner struggle with my

own mortality and the vast expanse of time of which we only get such a small sliver. As humans,

 we are all unique, but we share the same feelings of joy and sadness, courage and weakness,

struggle and perseverance that all others have felt and will feel through the entirety of mans existence on earth.