Winston Wächter Fine Art: Zaria Forman

ZARIA FORMAN

Zaria Forman focuses on subject matter that has become a rallying cry for climate change; her pastel drawings connect melting glaciers in Greenland to rising seawaters that threaten coastal communities. Working with her !ngers, she carefully renders images of icebergs, turbulent arctic waters, and waves crashing against the shores of the Maldives. Recognized both for her work’s environmentalist theme and for her impeccably naturalistic drawings, Forman’s realistic depictions of vanishing places are meant to stand as visual records for posterity. “My drawings invite viewers to share the urgency of climate change in a hopeful and signi!cant way. Art can facilitate a deeper understanding of any crisis, helping us !nd meaning and optimism in shifting landscapes.”

Zaria Forman’s work is exhibited widely across the United States and is held in the collections of the Arkansas Art Museum and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum. Her drawings have been featured by press organizations the world over and appear in the Net"ix series House of Cards.

Please contact us with any questions 206.652.5855 [email protected] www.winstonwachter.com

Cover: Greenland #54, 2012, soft pastel on paper, 40 x 60 inches

Greenland #69 2014 Soft pastel on paper 50 x 50 inches

Greenland #70 2014

Soft pastel on paper 40 x 40 inches

Greenland #58, 2013, soft pastel on paper, 30 x 44 inches


Greenland #66, 2014, soft pastel on paper, 40 x 60 inches Opposite: Greenland #52, 2012, soft pastel on paper, 45 x 60 inches

Greenland #57 2013 Soft pastel on paper 45 x 50 inches



Ice to Island Artist Statement

My most recent drawings document Earth’s shifting landscape and the effects of progressive climate change. In August 2012, I led an Arctic expedition up the NW coast of Greenland. Called Chasing the Light, it was the second expedition the mission of which was to create art inspired by this dramatic geography. e !rst, in 1869, was led by the American painter William Bradford. My mother, Rena Bass Forman, had conceived the idea for the voyage, but did not live to see it through. During the months of her illness her dedication to the expedition never wavered and I promised to carry out her !nal journey.

Documenting climate change, the work addresses the concept of saying goodbye on scales both global and personal. In Greenland, I scattered my mother’s ashes amidst the melting ice.

Continuing the story of polar melt, which is the main cause of rising seas, I followed the melt water from the Arctic to the equator. I spent September 2013 in the Maldives, the lowest and "attest country in the world, collecting material and inspiration to create a body of work celebrating and representing a nation that could be entirely underwater within this century.

My drawings invite viewers to share the urgency of climate change in a hopeful and signi!cant way. Art can facilitate a deeper understanding of any crisis, helping us !nd meaning and optimism in shifting landscapes.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to visit such remote and fragile places and enjoy the challenge of conveying their beauty. Perhaps if people can experience these sublime landscapes, they will be inspired to protect and preserve them.

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Maldives #2, 2013, soft pastel on paper, 41 x 60 inches

Israel #2, 2010, soft pastel on paper, 45 x 60 inches





Zaria Forman’s ominous landscapes of ice and water could easily be mistaken for photographs. But they’re actually an advanced kind of ! nger painting. Wearing latex surgical gloves to protect her hands, she rubs soft pastels on paper and spreads them with her ! ngertips. “Since I was little,” says the 32-year-old artist who lives in Brooklyn, “it just seemed like the most natural way to move the material around.” - Smithsonian Magazine

Zaria describes feeling “both the power and the fragility of the landscape in Greenland. e sheer size, majesty and beauty of the icebers is humbling. e ice ords are alive with constand movement and thunderous cracking - reminders of their destructive capabilities. Yet while their threatening potential is evidend, so is their vulnerability; I could see the ice melting under teh unseasonably warm sun. Exploring the "at islands of the Maldives gave me a similar sense of duality between power and fragility,” she continues. “ e looming, vast ocean demanded my attention, as it tightly surrounded each tiny island. e color, clarity and warmth of the water endlessly invited me while the waves crashed ominously along the encroaching coastline.” - American Art Collector

Plenty of photographers have "ocked to northern waters to document the rapidly changing environment that lies beyond the Arctic Circle. However, we doubt as many painters or visual artists have ventured to the freezing regions to capture the shifting beauty of landscapes affected by climate change. at's what makes Zaria Forman's work so unique. e artist recently traveled up the northwest coast of Greenland, basing her journey on the century-old travels of American painter William Bradford. Like her predecessor, who completed his journey in 1869, Forman recorded the vast and haunting sights she experienced along the way into epic landscape artworks. - Huffington Post

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Smithsonian Magazine

Huffington Post

American Art Collector

ABC7 Eyewitness News

Epoch Times

Daily Mail

My Modern Met

Lone Wolf Magazine

Colossal

Flesh and Bone

Juxtapoz

Art News

Flush Magazine

Business Insider

e Standard Times

Selected Press Greenland Today

Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point

New Bedford Whaling Museum

e New York Sun

e Herold Tribune

e Observer

Catamaran

e Record

Cultura Inquieta

e Standard Times

e Patriot Ledger

e Advocate

e Seattle Times

e St. Petersburg Times

Education 2005 BS in Studio Arts, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY 2004 Student Art Centers International (SACI), Florence, Italy

Solo Exhibitions 2014 Ice to Island, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA 2008 Arctic Light: Recent Drawings, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY 2006 Clearly Nebulous, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY 2006 Drawings by Zaria Forman, Bunburry’s Art Gallery, Piermont, NY 2005 Zaria Forman, Case Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY

Set Design 2013 House of Cards, Net"ix Original. Ten drawings featured 2012 Giselle, e Grand eatre of Geneva, Switzerland. Ten drawings 2009 Luminous, Beijing Contemporary Dance eatre, Beijing, China.

Group Exhibitions 2015 Changing Landscapes, Ringel Gallery, Purdue, University, West

Layfayette, IN Environmental Impact - A traveling museum exhibition, Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA, Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA, Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, SC, e Art Museum, SUNY Potsdam, Potsdam, NY, Stauth Memorial Museum, Additional Venues Pending Art on Paper, Pier 36, New York, NY

47th Collectors Show and Sale, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 2014 e Last Brucennial, 837 Washington Street, NY NY

CRB: Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, IN

We are One, Living Earth Ecological Institute, Phoenix, AZ On the Labrador, Northern Lights Gallery, Belfast, ME Waterways, Heather Gaudio Fine Art, New Cannan, CT Space//Squared, White Walls Gallery, San Francisco, CA Winter Group Exhibit, Mark Murray Gallery, New York, NY Timeless Rythms, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD Environmental Impact - A traveling museum exhibition

2013 Zaria Forman/Huguette May, DeeDee Shattuck Gallery, Westport,MA

Spring Highlights, Winston Wächter, Seattle WA 2012 Giselle, Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, NY Earth, Sky, and in Between, Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY Group Summer Show, Skidmore Contemporary Art, Santa Monica, CA Group Summer Show, Victorine Contemporary Art, Newport, RI Flaura and Fauna, Gay Head Gallery, Aquinnah, MA Brucennial 2012, e Bruce High Quality Foundation 2011 Obsessions: Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, NY AAF: e Affordable Art Fair, New York, NY Art Auction to Bene"t Japan, VON Bar, New York, NY Master Drawings New York, Mark Murray Gallery, New York, NY 2010 Real: Realism in Diverse Media, Imago Galleries, Palm Desert CA

Curate NYC 2010, A multi-venue juried exhibition of NYC artists My Summer Vacation, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA Gallery Artists, DFN Gallery, New York, NY Juried Alumni Exhibition, Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY e Brucennial 2010: Miseducation, e Bruce High Quality Foundation in collaboration with Vito Schnabel, New York, NY Looks Good on Paper, DFN Gallery, New York, NY Natural Visions, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, WA New Landscapes, DFN Gallery, New York, NY

2009 Parallel, Zaria Forman and Rena Bass Forman, e Durst Organization, New York, NY Designer's Showroom, D&D Building, NY, NY e Art of Seeing, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY Top to Bottom, A Hudson River Arts Map Installation, Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY Enlightenment, Rockefeller Parks Preserve Art Gallery, Sleepy

Hollow, NY Spring Group, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY Selected Works by Gallery Artists, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO. Abstract/Nature, DFN Gallery, NY, NY

Designer's Show and Sale, e Designer Show House on the Hudson, Grandview, NY

2008 Polar Light: Greenland, Zaria Forman and Rena Bass Forman, Look North Inuit Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Summer Group Exhibition, e David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO Summer Group Show, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY Light Entanglements, Blue Hill Art and Cultural Center, Pearl River NY Tranceformation, Bene"t Show and Auction, List Art Center, Brown University, RI Spring Group Show, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO. Artists For L.W.A.L.A., Auction Event, Gallery Bar, NY, NY. Some Wonderful ings Part II, Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art, Sarasota, FL

Zaria Forman and Catherine Minnery, e Mikhail Zakin Gallery, Demarest, NJ Solstice, e David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO Palm Beach 3, DFN Gallery, Palm Beach Art Fair, Palm Beach, FL Works on Paper, DFN Gallery, NY, NY Winter Group Show, RARE Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY

2007 Anderson Ranch Annual Arts Auction, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO Collectors Show and Sale, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AK Summer Group Show, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD Summer Group, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY It’s Outside, Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art, Sarasota, FL Summer Group Exhibition, RARE Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY Group Exhibition, Project A Gallery, Nashville, TN Group Exhibition, Allen Sheppard Gallery, NY, NY

2006 e Next Generation, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD Collectors Show and Sale, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AK Seven: Degrees of Relativity, Rockland Center for the Arts, S. Nyack, NY

2005  Senior esis Exhibition, Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY Juried Exhibition, Schick Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY

2004 Juried Student Exhibition, SACI Gallery, Florence, Italy Group Exhibition, Case Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY Group Exhibition, Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs,

NY

Collections Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum Arkansas Art Museum Gerard Depardieu

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Winston Wächter Fine Art: Zaria Forman