LIZZIE ZELTER

Lizzie Zelter creates paintings that confound a sense of spatial continuity by distorting specific architectural surfaces through the use of close range framing devices. The result conjures a strong, yet undefined, sense of place. The characteristics of the buildings in Chugging Along (2022) are intriguing and their soft sculptural quality belies the sense of stability conventionally rendered in depictions of architectural elements such as doorways, rooflines, and stairs. The flattened depth of field accentuates the sense of a fiction―of the not quite real―or a wavering between the depicted, the visually illusory, and the imagined.

WORKS

In Getting to the bottom of it (2022) the breaks in the picture plane emphasize the varied angles of component parts—building facade, shelf, and mirror—that share in collapsing the inside and outside of a domestic space. The entire architectural surface and its accoutrements are sequestered as if behind a sheet of glass with graffiti writing that sits atop their geometries. In counterbalance to this foregrounded mark making is the relative distance of the sky with its atmospheric sun, telephone line and trees. The topsy turvy of objects and surfaces are thus set into the stabilizing context of a neighborhood, grounding the composition to a symbolically notated place. Traces of its unseen inhabitants are further referenced in this constructed world through commonplace details such as the curtains and even a window shade pull. 

The palette in both of these works is reminiscent of the mid-range blues and greens often associated with the color of paint on the exteriors of buildings in warm climates. This association is further emphasized by the wobbly, perceptual warping caused by the refraction of light in very hot climes. The jumbling of familiar signs—from cornices to window panes to a rocky set of steps—confuses the spatial relations. Zelter creates a world both recognizable and off kilter as a metaphoric space of enchantment and bewilderment.