Exhibit of drawings exploring life during pandemic will run Feb. 4 through March 11

Work by interdisciplinary artist Zach Mory will be on view Feb. 4 through March 11 in Caestecker Gallery, C.J. Rodman Center for the Arts. An artist’s talk and opening reception will be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 4.

Caestecker Gallery is open from 2 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Visitors to campus are required to wear masks.

Mory taught Drawing 1 and Digital Art at Ripon College in 2010–2011. Originally from Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, he now is based in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. His current work is a series of self-reflexive drawings exploring life in the pandemic.

“Beginning with simple marks made with graphite or ink, I explore different systems that those marks can function within,” Mory says. “One mark leads to the next and so on until what is left is an accumulated residue of the time spent within each particular modality. Slowly each system exhausts itself or reaches its inherent structural conclusion. Sometimes this way of working manifests itself in pure non-objective process-oriented drawings, while other times it becomes more illustrative and psychedelic. Regardless of approach, my work is always is rooted in an exploration of minutia, mark making and a deep yearning for the sublime, oblivion, and escapism.

“Even though my drawings function within a set of strict guidelines, each piece is its own entity and has its own unique outcome. There is a dichotomy between macro and micro. This tension between macro and micro and past and present creates the overall presence upon which the work is rooted. You are given the end result and get to reflect on the moments that led to it.”

In his current work, he says, he strives to “delve into my subconscious more, tell stories through symbols, create unholy, one-sided pacts with artists that I love from the past and shamelessly rip them off, create characters who function as stand-ins. I want to dig deeper, find more, use more skills, develop new imagery.”

Mory exhibits his work extensively and has taught throughout Wisconsin and Illinois, including at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Carthage College, Lawrence University, Waubonsee Community College, College of DuPage and most recently at Wheaton Warrenville South High School.

(Photo: Detail of “Adieu,” by Zach Mory)

Posted January 31, 2022 in Fine Arts.

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