Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition with artist, Zaria Forman. Featuring intricate pastel drawings of ice and water in its various, shifting states, SLIP presents a meditation on the role of climate change on Earth’s most common element.
These stunning, large-scale drawings made from photographs of polar and tropical lands combine sublime romanticism, social consciousness, and modern abstraction. Forman documented the melting icebergs in Greenland, as well as the rising sea levels that threaten the island nation of the Maldives. Other drawings feature glaciers of Antarctica and beaches of Hawaii. With these works, Forman not only gives visual access to far-off places, but also renders the concept of climate change visually understandable and emotionally compelling. Avoiding any heavy-handed moralism, Forman instead suggests a contemplation of water, exploring the duality of the life-giving and destructive ocean.
The glisten of meltwater highlights looming mountains of ice, revealing the transience of these formidable yet fragile icebergs. Frozen in time, waves crashing on a Maldivian beach echo the majesty of the icebergs. Facing the vast ocean rather than the land it encroaches upon, the allure of a tropical paradise is charged with knowledge that the country is slowly submerging. Forman’s monochromatic palette allows for an intense focus on the blues, grays, and whites of water in its ever-shifting states. The work documents places where the effects of climate change are most tangible, and its quiet beauty instills a desire to protect the natural world. Amid important conversations on climate change that too often sway toward pessimism or worse, apathy, Forman presents a poetic and nuanced optimism.
Zaria Forman was born in South Natick, Massachusetts and currently works and resides in Brooklyn, New York. She studied at the Student Art Centers International in Florence, Italy and received a BS in Studio Arts at Skidmore College in New York. Forman’s works have been in publications such as Juxtapoz Magazine, National Geographic Magazine, Huffington Post, and the Smithsonian Magazine. Zaria was featured on Good Day New York, Fox News, and interviewed by Lucy Yang on ABC7 Eyewitness News.
