Jerry Zeniuk's monochrome paintings of the
`70s consisted of soft, uniform planes of
color. Over the years, from painting to
painting, he has gradually and
systematically fractured then disassembled
the picture plane, while his choice in
color shifted from moody ochres and mauves
to highly pitched primaries. In the '80s,
Zeniuk was associated with the Radical
Painting group, an international circle of
concrete abstractionists whose members
included Marcia Hafif, Joseph Marioni and
Gunter Umberg, among others. Although he
still maintains many of the constricted
conventions of monochrome painting, Zeniuk
makes paintings that remain surprisingly
open poetic outbursts of what could be
described as torn color structure.
This latest show consists of works on paper
which, though modestly sized at 22 1/2 by
30 inches, seem large for watercolors. The
interior scale of the broadly stroked bands
of color add to their sense of largeness.
The paint is applied freely, and sometimes
a darker tone is painted into a lighter
one, or an uncovered patch of paper bites
at the interstices. Zeniuk's direct
handling of the paint again adds to the
feeling of openness, but his deliberation
causes tension at the edges. The friction
between the planes of color may be the
result of some sort of procedural
restriction the artist has placed on
himself, such as only using as much paint
as fits on a brush for one area of color.
Although the color spaces float passively,
each area seems to chafe against another
until they ultimately, and mysteriously,
interlock. The color itself, even at its
warmest and most fluid, seems thinly
brittle and mighty bright.
Zeniuk has been steadily disrupting his
paintings' surfaces since the `70s, and
these latest watercolors seem to represent
his extreme cleaving of the concrete. He is
one of few artists who has found his way
through and out of the pure monochrome, and
these paintings account for his development
as a disciplined and facile artist. It is
interesting how generous these paintings
appear, particularly in light of their
context. They are not concerned with
providing strategized solutions. These
paintings in their incomplete manner allow
the viewer considerable room to move about,
and perhaps even enter these works more
deeply.
Lawrence Markey
55 Vandam Street, New York, NY 10013
April 6 - June 15, 1996.
Michael Brennan is a New York painter who
writes on art.
