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ANIMAL INSTINCTS
July 2 - August 14, 2021
Opening reception July 2, 5:30 - 8 pm
Curated by Anastasiya Tarasenko
Eleni Giannopoulou
Christina Lucia Giuffrida
Rachel Jackson
Sophia Kayafas
Thomas Levy
Daniel Morowitz
Sarah Schechter
Ann Leda Shapiro
Darryl Smith
Anastasiya Tarasenko
Alex Torres
Lauren West
Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson
Steven Zevitas Gallery is pleased to present Animal Instincts, curated by Anastasiya Tarasenko. The exhibition will run through August 14th, with a public opening reception on Friday, July 2, 5:30 - 8 pm.
“In putting together Animal Instincts, I thought about the ubiquity of animal symbolism throughout human history to the present day. When our ancestors, far and wide, first put their tools to the use of making images, they chose to celebrate their complex relationship with nature. Contemporary artists carry on this tradition well into the 21st century, tapping into the vast lexicon of animal imagery to depict their inner and outer worlds. While the immediacy of our relationship with nature grows ever distant, the labor of animals carries on in our minds.
Thomas Levy told me the spider in his painting is a sort of self-portrait, spiders being something he both admires, yet fears. The serpent, a long established and loaded metaphor, is suffocating Darryl Smith in his self-portrait. What temptation is conquering him? And speaking of conquering, in Sophia Kayafas’s As Love Conquers the Sting of Death, a goddess, naked in full wrath and power is slaying a serpent of her own. Rachel Jackson makes prolific use of the ultimate beast of burden, the horse, in her drawings as they carry the strain of human interaction. This same strain, with endearing and relatable humor, is shown in Lauren West’s White Horse. Is this horse, like so many images us artists have subconsciously interjected before, also a self-portrait? Christina Lucia Giuffrida’s, Bush Pig, the man-made beast that made the horse obsolete, is described with the same affection one would have for a beloved pet.
We instinctively recognize the symbolic threat of archetypical predators in Alex Torres’s Supreme Shark. The word (and brand name) Supreme looms over the head of the supreme predator of the sea. Daniel Morowitz’s character, in a fit of chaos, banishes his own familiar, looming predator.
In stark contrast, the graceful swan gives off peaceful energy in Sarah Schechter’s All One. Eleni Gianopoulou ritualistically assembles her skeletal horned beast with a combination of handmade and found objects, symbolically breathing life into the deceased. Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson’s horned animal skull flies over the world, animated and free in death. Where is it going and for what purpose? We can ask a similar question of Ann Leda Shapiro’s drawing, Swirling Brain:
Where is the tremendous force of life going to carry us, the beasts we are, next?”
--Anastasiya Tarasenko
