Elizabeth Zvonar
Vancouver artist’s collages offer an intriguing blast of images.
Elizabeth Zvonar, "I Spy," 2020
vinyl, 92" x 141" (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
A bombardment of imagery has become our everyday life. The Internet conflates time and distance, delivering a world to experience without letting our gaze leave the screen; we live in a cave of shadows beyond Plato’s imagination.
Vancouver-based artist Elizabeth Zvonar’s I Spy, a single collage made from 55 whole images, some of them cut and separated, offers eclectic references. On view at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver until March 1, it includes recent and vintage fashions, Boy George and Joan Rivers, as well as an Andy Warhol drawing of a pink cat named Sam. There are quite a few references to cats, which seems appropriate given their popularity on the Internet.
American cultural critic Susan Sontag, in her 1977 collection of essays, On Photography, likens having a photograph of something to having a piece of it. The viewer, she says, has a “chronic voyeuristic relation.” While a photograph was once a static object – it remained in front of us, unchanging, providing a space for contemplation, the Internet has transformed the singular photographic image into a flickering torrent.
Elizabeth Zvonar, “Photography is Hard,” 2019
vinyl, 121" x 96.5” (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
Zvonar frequently refers to photography in her collages. Photography is Hard appropriates Lucian Freud’s portrait of British socialite Pauline Tennant; her cheek is next to a camera lens, but her eye looks past it. She seems to be listening to the lens in the way we hold shells to our ears to hear the ocean. She is looking, but not seeing. In I Spy, German theologian Martin Luther's disembodied hand holds a camera.
Another recurring motif is the wall, which refers to writings on racism and feminism by British-Australian scholar Sara Ahmed, who uses walls metaphorically to refer to institutional racism and misogyny. Lest it get too political, numerous references to cats reinforce a sense of playfulness. But Zvonar does acknowledge women artists.
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Elizabeth Zvonar, “Ode to Sherman,” 2020
vinyl, 108” x 95.5” (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
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Elizabeth Zvonar, “Hello Helen,” 2018
Kodak Slickrock Metallic and iBond, 21” x 18” (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
As with Hannah Höch, one of the originators of photomontage in the early 20th century, Zvonar examines the place of women in society. Hello Helen, an eye-like arrangement of dark curves against a white background, refers to American artist Helen Pashgian, a key member of the 1960s Light and Space art movement, who frequently used spheres in her work. Ode to Sherman refers to Cindy Sherman’s use of masks, a nice parallel, as Zvonar uses a digital masking tool in contrast to Sherman’s prosthetics.
Elizabeth Zvonar, “Skull,” 2018
Baryta and iBond, 27.5” x 20” (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
I Spy, because of its non-hegemonic blast of images, is intriguing and unnerving. Individual works, such as Skull – which combines a skull from Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town destroyed by Mount Vesuvius, with an oyster mushroom that cascades down its fossilized core – create space for contemplation.
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Elizabeth Zvonar, “Storyteller,” 2018
Baryta and iBond, 34” x 23” (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
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Elizabeth Zvonar, “Samari,”2018
Baryta and iBond 25” x 18” (courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto)
The juxtapositions in Skull, Samari and Storyteller lead viewers into a plot. Storyteller’s owl with human arms looks worried. In Samari, a pair of arms catches the sunlight, while a faint owl glowers from behind. The cropped head of Samari links visually to Skull. But the plot doesn’t twist. The collage artist has done her job – the shadows flicker in our cave; they represent our world. ■
I Spy: Elizabeth Zvonar is on view at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver from Jan. 18 to March 1, 2020.
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The Polygon Gallery
101 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver, British Columbia V7M 3J4
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