Gallery Show

"Once, Maybe Twice"

Work from Milwaukee artist Zhana Vaynberg

Showing March 7th thru April 11th

At Fasten Designer Collective

Opening Reception March 14th, 7-9pm

Zhana Vaynberg lives in Riverwest and has been painting for about five years. She has been in a number of gallery shows, including the Charles Allis Museum Juried Show in 2006. She has also done a lot of commission work. While she started out using acrylic paint,Zhana now uses oil paint exclusively. She has also spent a year engraving realistic portraits into tombstones.

Statement:

John Cocteau has said that "artists can no more speak about their work, than plants can speak about horticulture." I strongly agree with this statement. I never really ask why I am painting something, I just do. There is an itch and it needs to get scratched. There are people who are gone that need tangible replacements. There are moments I don’t want to forget. These are the things that my art focuses on, whether or not it is even my intention or desire. This series is a collection of all the work that has made it through shows and purchase from the past couple of years, 2006 being the climax of a four year stage focusing only on realism, and 2007 finally starting to exit from that. My central interests and themes to date have mostly been to capture beauty or just certain moments in a natural way. Much like the difference between a film and a documentary, when I work, I do not use or base anything off of photographs that have been or seem posed. I only want the natural. I am interested almost entirely in the human form, human interactions, and human frailty. -ZV