Jessica Houston

Mine At Last: Mixed Media Collage on Archival Paper, Contemporary

2022

A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...

A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...

Zupan combines images from old masters, alchemical prints, contemporary artists, and bits from magazines and newspapers to create overlapping, intersecting worlds of transparencies and transformation. Colleges allow emotions to converge with the material, the juxtaposition of the past and present in an atmosphere of no time. She seeks baroque minimalism. The work is informed by romance, desire, disillusion, torment, ecstasy, dream, and myth. Her best works are erotic displays of mental confusion, particularly concerning relationships. She usually works in series to emphasize repetition and obsession Combining Renaissance ideals and concepts with images taken from contemporary media, Natasha Zupan beautifully unites the old and the new in her collage work. Natasha combines the innovation of her elaborate technique with her charm for tradition and the inspiration of the great Masters. Her clear, bright brushstrokes and her play of light and shadow are both rhythmic and youthful. The female figures in her paintings have an undeniable Renaissance character at the time, but they are reborn in our understanding of contemporary aesthetics. Their classic faces become modern nymphs when combined with symbols of nature and beauty. Each figurative work harbors a unique and intricate personality. Powerfully expressive, they are at once pure, sensual, innocent and seductive. From the Series Eternal Recurrence Photo collage...

Zupan combines images from old masters, alchemical prints, contemporary artists, and bits from magazines and newspapers to create overlapping, intersecting worlds of transparencies a...