Tamar Zinn

New York, NY

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How would you describe your work?

My paintings and drawings are abstractions that while suggestive of the natural world, are intended to evoke sensations rather than describing a particular place or time. My imagery is invented, but informed by memories of all that I have experienced. Light, atmospheric ambiguity, and movement are touchstones that drive my work. I’m also very much preoccupied by the notion of liminality – the sense that all is transitory. The challenge is to communicate a perpetual state of being ‘in-between’ while making something that is concrete and unchanging.

What inspires you?

I am motivated by curiosity and a desire to offer visual experiences that are simultaneously suggestive of something familiar while being otherworldly. I am always observing what is around me and thinking about what it is that I notice. So a walk outside, whether I’m in the woods or on a city street, becomes a way to observe shifts in light and color. I’m noticing how reflected sunlight transforms the color of a brick wall, or how the moonlight casts a soft glow on a grassy expanse. Lately, I’ve been transfixed by watching the movement of the wind high up in the trees, or the faint flicker of soft shadows on a wall. All of that noticing eventually shows up in my paintings, transformed by time and shaped by my vocabulary of mark-making and color.

Can you speak about your process?

I often describe my process as purposeful stumbling around. I start with a loose set of parameters, but stay open to whatever tumbles out even if it falls outside those parameters. The most exciting possibilities emerge when you let yourself break your own rules. For me, painting is a slow, extended process. Although I don’t start out with an endpoint in mind, I do have intentions towards light, movement, or color. When I sit surrounded by recently completed work, it sparks the initial direction for new paintings. I begin by putting down several layers of broad atmospheric color interspersed with layers of gestural marks. Through a process of accretion and removal, I gradually discover where the work wants to take me. I usually work on several paintings at the same time so if I get stuck, I have another painting to jump into. Each painting in a series helps me understand how to resolve the other paintings.

In contrast, drawing is a fairly rapid sensory process and a means of capturing gesture. The gestures may be fast or slow, they may be extended or articulated. It is about breath and movement and each series is an embodiment of my sensibilities at a particular time. The similarity with my approach to painting is that I don’t know where I’m heading. A new series of drawings begins with an exploration of materials, not an idea that I want to reveal on paper. It is the feel of oil pastel or charcoal against the paper that helps me to discover the shape of the gesture that is right for that moment. A completed drawing makes manifest the sensation of movements flowing from breath to shoulder and arm. Drawing for me is the most direct and unfiltered expression of who I am at a particular moment.

How did you become interested in art?

I’m not really sure – it was just something that I enjoyed doing. While my family went to museums frequently when I was a child, I didn’t know any visual artists and I had no idea that becoming an artist was an option. My parents didn’t own any original art, but we had framed reproductions of work I saw at the museums and they also bought books with art of the great masters. As a child, I was fascinated by archaeology and assumed that I’d end up in some scientific field. But I grew up in a NYC neighborhood where community organizations offered classes in the arts. I started violin lessons when I was six, and added classes in modern dance soon after. When I was 10 or 11, I also attended a weekly art class. By the time I was in middle school, every Saturday was spent playing in an orchestra in the morning and going to an art class at the Art Student’s League in the afternoon. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that I fully turned my attention to visual art.

Do you have any favorite artists, movies, books, or quotes?

I’m always returning to the work of Brice Marden, Richard Diebenkorn, and Morandi. Of course, there are so many other influences, but their work offers me the most joy and sustenance.

MARDEN, from an interview for his 2020 exhibit at the Menil Drawing Institute:

“Just pick a line and follow it. Hopefully, you begin to disappear.”

DIEBENKORN, from his list of Notes to myself on beginning a painting:

“Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.

Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position.“

What advice do you have for younger artists?

Keep going. Take risks. Be patient. Give yourself permission to lose your way.

Notice what you are noticing -- in your own work and in the work of others.