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TONY ZAZA

Drawing, Painting, Paper / Book / Illustration, Photography, Printmaking, Visual / Media

My work originates from a desire to freeze emotion, extracting the passionate component of the physical world. Black and White Infrared, the medium I’ve worked with for 50 years does something else. I’ve tried to challenge and reinterpret the medium. This film which is no longer manufactured renders the Real-world in terms of invisible light and, therefore, records a partially unseen reality. The magical and spiritual aspects of the subject are only imagined because the unseen can only be felt. The spectator is forced to stop looking and start feeling the Form. And, a form without feeling is a failure.

About the Artist

Tony Zaza is mostly self-taught. Attended School of Visual Arts, The New  School for Social Research, graduated Fairleigh Dickinson University and Columbia University School of the Arts. Worked as Technical Director, Sound Recordist,Cameraman, Syndicated Writer, Contract Officer, University-level instructor. Author: Audio Design, Script Planning, Family Guide to Movies On Video, Mechanics of Sound Recording. Primary media : watercolor, photography, printmaking.

TONY ZAZA website All Media Site TONY ZAZA website Gallery

Artist's Statement

Like a ship on the open sea, my work confronts new emotional obstacles and becomes a physical adaptation to changes in my wellbeing. When the sea is calm and sunny, I’m working in black & white infrared film, when the seas get turbulent, I go back to drawing. When alone, I paint. It is solitary, so the quarantine is a soothing match and an inspiration to evoke things distant from me. My unfinished portraits represent work in constant transition, just like life. I am currently working on small 12” x 12” portraits of fictional or historical indigenous peoples from far-off lands not fully understood where the tribal circular world is isolated from the Pandemic. This current portraiture differs from anything I’ve done before the Pandemic. It celebrates surviving cultures. The role of the creative process is to cast out uniformity, evoke the world of spirit, explore alternative world views

Featured Work

Photos

Black & White Infrared Photograph
SpiritScape Photo
Analog Color Photograph of Circus gymnasts
Portrait of Indigenous peoples
Portrait of Warrior Queen of Ancient Egypt