One Last Look at Cristin Zimmer

I've been trying to get this post published for about a week now.  Josh and I have been having some significant computer problems and I'm sad to say that the website we were working on, where we were going to display galleries for our featured artists, well it's no longer, we lost it all.  You might have also seen this blog in disarray on Monday.  And sure enough, even our baby blog was affected; we lost about a month worth of posts.  Unfortunately, I don't have a fancy website to link you to today, and while that's sad I'm happy to report that regardless of all these misfortunes, what I'm going to show you today will most certainly change the mood I have so sadly set. 

We attended the opening gallery of our featured artist Cristin Zimmer this past Wednesday.  

Her work spoke to me on a deep level.  The facial expressions that I saw in her work, at times seemed like a mirror, reflecting back to me my own emotions and struggles.  

And while I have photots to share with you today, if you live in the Salt Lake City area, you should really go see her show.  It speaks louder and clearer when heard in person.  

Her show will be running for one more week.  You can find directions here.

Baggage Claim 

Such a Good Girl

Roll Over

Untitled

Get Yer Tail

Tsunami

Raama in the Indian Summer

iMom

Artist’ Statement: Women possess raw, creative energy as well as destructive power. This split nature speaks to archetypal dualities that exist universally in the myths, stories, and legends that have reflected diverse societies’ views on women, and in turn, influenced women’s views of themselves.

My work explores the female psyche. Dualities that exist in mythical women manifest themselves everyday in the minds of the modern woman: balancing the psychological need to find the wild, assertive and instinctual self with the constraints and expectations of domesticity; the harm of certain coping mechanisms, versus the terrifying risk of letting them go; and internalized physical strength, versus the awareness of one’s mental deterioration. I address specific psychological struggles that unfold in my own mind as well as in those of close friends and family.

My figures should look as though they have just emerged from the earth, recalling many cultures’ creation myths. Raw, unglazed surfaces crate a tenuous balance, on of strength but also tension, that depict both the fragile balance of consciousness over the millennia and hint at our constant search to know ourselves.

Mosaic chips reference a rich ceramic history an tradition, but ultimately become abstract representation of the self; fragmented bits and pieces of memory, experience, people, and inherited biology that combine to form our being. Using these chips, I explore how these pieces add up and then end up surfacing in our everyday lives; sometimes exploding from the inside, and at other times slowly leaking out, revealed only by injury or painful introspection. At times they only surface in dreams, acting as a lens through which we see our world.

Symbolic settings become the backdrops for complex inner dramas to play out. These figures and landscapes take the form of busts, historically used to commemorate the public accomplishments of male patrons. I want to pay homage to women for something much more personal and private: the complexity of her inner thoughts, feelings, emotions and ambitions. A woman’s inner life is not always accessible or easily articulated to others, but it is in that place that we discover our true selves.   By:  Cristin Zimmer

If you are interested in contacting Cristin for more information, or to purchase her work, you can find her on the web at czimmer(dot)com.  

And if you are interested in being our next featured artist, then send us an email to theartistshouse(at)gmail(dot)com, along with five images of your work plus an artist's statement.