Arts, Etc.Fine Art

Photos evoke color, movement

Zelda Zinn presented her first solo exhibit on Sept. 23. Zinn is upbeat and friendly when talking about her art. “The first picture I took was when I was nine or 10. My friend was blowing a bubble and I was able to see her image through the bubble,” she said. David Russo, Zinn’s boyfriend said, “The world affects her. She’s very hopeful.” Zinn’s exhibit will be on display until Oct.15 in the Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography in Miller Hall. / photo by Reina Santa Cruz
Zelda Zinn presented her first solo exhibit on Sept. 23. Zinn is upbeat and friendly when talking about her art. “The first picture I took was when I was nine or 10. My friend was blowing a bubble and I was able to see her image through the bubble,” she said. David Russo, Zinn’s boyfriend said, “The world affects her. She’s very hopeful.” Zinn’s exhibit will be on display until Oct.15 in the Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography in Miller Hall. / photo by Reina Santa Cruz

Shelli DeRobertis
Staff Writer

Zelda Zinn, mother, teacher, artist presents “Body Language.” Zinn’s artwork is on display in the Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography at the University of La Verne, like her simple titles, only begin to describe all that she represents.

“Body Language” is the theme of her 30 photos, whose titles include “Twister,” “Between Us” and “Gun Play.”

“I think it’s good for titles to be open-ended because you want the viewers to have their own thoughts. They are like clues,” Zinn said.

Vivid colors come to life on each image, and as unique as each one is, equally intriguing is the way Zinn creates them.

They are all done sans camera. Her work is a nontraditional method of photography in which she uses a high-resolution scanner as her blank page to create the negative.

Zinn creates a digital collage on the scanner bed and then uses Photoshop software to fix minor blemishes or entirely transform the picture.

Cotton balls, match sticks, wrapping paper and Monopoly houses are just some of the items she utilizes to give formation and dimension to her pictures.

Zinn’s piece “Gun Play,” for example, shows two men in a back-to-back stance, roped together at the waist, each holding a glock.

“I Googled the glocks,” she said. She refers to an Internet search. “The guns are paper glocks.”

Her spark for photography was first ignited when she was 8 years old.

“The very first picture (I took) was my friend blowing a giant bubble and you could see her face through it,” she said. “Photography captured my imagination.”

Zinn received her master’s in photography from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque in 1985.

In 1988 she received her master of fine arts from the same college. She is a photography instructor and laboratory coordinator at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, where she has been teaching high school students for 14 years.

She currently teaches only three times a week, which allows her more time for her artwork.

Her pictures have been in numerous exhibits, portrayed alongside other works in group shows.

“This is my first solo,” Zinn said.

Gary Colby, professor of photography, was at an art convention in Rhode Island when he first saw Zinn’s work.

“At the end of the convention artists get a giant room and display their work,” Colby said. Work was everywhere, even on the floor.

“I was attracted to her work because it’s so accessible,” Colby said. “It’s complex but simple. It wasn’t so self-serving. It wasn’t carrying a heavy message that was about her, like so many of them were.”

When he found out Zinn was a local artist, he invited her to show her work at ULV saying it would be a nice way to start off the semester.

“Her titles are so simple but her pictures are so complex,” said Irene Beltran, a sophomore art major.

She and Zinn spoke about how a lot of the pictures were about balancing.

The next attractive feature in Zinn’s work was her color selections.

Many students and faculty had much to say about how the choices affect the pieces.

“There’s so much color-the red and the orange just bring emotion. I love color,” Beltran said.

There is definitely an emotion that the colors bring about in the art.

“Color is wacky. It’s really fun,” Zinn said.

See for yourself. Zelda Zinn’s artwork will be on display at the Irene Carlson Galley of Photography in Miller Hall. The exhibit continues now through Oct. 15.

Shelli DeRobertis can be reached at sderobertis@ulv.edu.

Shelli DeRobertis
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Reina Santa Cruz
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