JUSTYN MICHAEL ZOLLI : VISUAL ARTIST


Artist Statement:

Painting can act either as window or wall.

When looked at like a wall, Painting refers ultimately to nothing but itself as Painting. Painting therefore accesses only itself, and ultimately does not present anything but itself as Painting.
All contents within paintings do not truly refer to anything but the painting itself. Such Painting speaks of nothing but itself as Painting, as surface, as the very stuff of Painting. It signifies nothing but itself, and only itself. Our joy is in its materiality and its opticality.

Yet, it may point past itself, out the window, into something imagined. When a Painting is looked into like an imaginative window, it reveals and fixes the absence of its subject; we are re-minded of that which is not truly present. It is an effigy of reality, a memorial. It becomes a vehicle of re-assemblance for us, and a calling back from the void, like language. Such Painting disappears into the infinite absence of its subject, revealing only a relic in our memory or else a prophecy and a hope. The subject is not here; Here is only us and this painted image.

When looked into, Painting reveals an opening to the world.
When looked at, Painting revels in the surfaces of the world.
The very best abstract Painting oscillates between both modes, creating both tension and pleasure in one’s vision.

The real point of Painting as a discipline is to reveal our vision to ourselves, to make vision visible, imaginatively or tangibly.
In always seeking that which is just beyond form, to touch the Spirit, the painter-mystic attempts to penetrate the visibility of their own vision; pointing the burning spear-tip of their creativity at the ungraspable. For with every gesture of the brush, one is also faced with an infinite withdrawal into the particular, into forms, into act, into Painting itself.


+Justyn Michael Zolli