Press Release: Melinda Zox | Conversation in Color | October 21 – December 31, 2017

| October 21 - December 31, 2017

Melinda Zox | Conversation in Color

 

Melinda Zox: Conversation in Color

October 21 – December 31, 2017

Artist Reception: Saturday, October 21 from 4 to 6 PM

 

Quogue, N.Y., October 16, 2017.  Unleashing the full expressionist force of color on canvas, Melinda Zox  arrives at the Quogue Gallery with five dynamic paintings and eight works on paper dating from 2014 to 2017. The exhibition of work by the daughter of one of the pre-eminent artists of the Sixties (she readily admits that abstract painting is in her blood) will be on view from October 21 to December 31, 2017, with an opening reception on Saturday, October 21, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Melinda Zox is an emerging Abstract Expressionist painter who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City under Frank Roth. She is the daughter of Larry Zox, who played an essential role in the Color Field movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and his artist wife Jean Glover Zox. Melinda Zox was raised in the heart of the downtown New York City art scene. Her childhood, she recalls, was “a continual lesson in the experience of art and creativity. Art, color and expression were part of our daily life and almost every conversation.”

 

Melinda Zox - Black Coal Bay

“Black Coal Bay”, Mixed media on paper, 30″ x 22.5″

 

The excitement of that conversation on color, the most potent and at the same time elusive of artistic elements, is everywhere evident in the exhibition. It pulses with an almost thermal intensity at the core of Black Coal Bay, a large-scale mixed media on paper work, and it deftly dances around the powerful black architecture of Stacked Black, an acrylic and gouache on canvas. Where an inky, consuming black expanse is the bass note of Stacked Black, an incandescent white expanse is at the center of Light Stir, surrounded by a rhythmic frame of calligraphic red, blue and green strokes that pursue one another around the edge with quiet elegance. It is the epitome of the artist’s statement on process:  “I am drawn to color and influenced by bold, strong lines as well as dynamic powerful shapesThe work is grounded by quiet and still lines interrupted by layers of explosive energetic color.”

 

“Stacked Black”, Acrylic and gouache on canvas, 48″ x 36″

 

“Light Stir,” Mixed media on paper, 30″ x 42″

 

Zox’s childhood with her parents high-toned paintings and a wealth of other artistic influences informs the technical as well as expressive quality of the works. The keynote is abstraction. She recalls being mesmerized by the mobiles of Alexander Calder and the sculpture of Michael Steiner, whose name is less-known now than it was in the Sixties and Seventies when such powerhouse critics as Clement Greenberg and Karen Wilkin hailed him as an important figure. Together with the Modernist architecture of Manhattan, Zox points to these important three-dimensional influences on her two-dimensional works on paper and canvas:

“I work hard to develop paintings that speak both to me and to others about the beauty that exists in space, color and movementI feel exhilarated when I paint a new line of color interrupting the flat space creating movement, and flowI layer the paint creating texture; building and adding more dimensions. I have to paint; it is my life’s blood.  Paint and canvas have become instruments for me to express my feelings and be heard.”

 

ABOUT QUOGUE GALLERY

 

As Quogue’s first and only private art gallery, the Quogue Gallery is a dynamic space in the Hamptons where artists, collectors, and art enthusiasts can meet and share their common passion for serious artistic investigation and appreciation. The gallery’s mission is to present a program of artistic excellence not limited to any genre or medium. Its focus is on modern and contemporary art created by emerging, established, and historically important artists. An essential aspect of the mission is to establish the gallery as an active, vibrant, and inventive participant in the Hamptons art panorama, with artist talks and events that significantly contribute to modern and contemporary art discourse.

Quogue Gallery is at 44 Quogue Street, Quogue, NY 11959. quoguegallery.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melinda Zox is an emerging Abstract Expressionist painter who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City under Frank Roth. Zox is the daughter of abstract painter Larry Zox who played an essential roll in the Color Field discourse of the 1960s and 1970s and his artist wife Jean Glover Zox. As a result, she was raised in the heart of the downtown New York City art scene. Her childhood, she says, was “a continual lesson in the experience of art and creativity. Art, color and expression were part of our daily life and almost every conversation.”

Artist Statement

As an artist, I work hard to develop paintings that speak both to me and to others about the beauty that exists in space, color and movement.  I am drawn to color and influenced by bold, strong lines as well as dynamic powerful shapesThe work is grounded by quiet and still lines interrupted by layers of explosive energetic color. I feel exhilarated when I paint a new line of color interrupting the flat space creating movement, and flowI layer the paint creating texture; building and adding more dimensions. Drawing has always been an inspirational form of expression for me.  As a child, I was mesmerized by Michael Steiner steel sculptors and Alexander Calder’s mobiles as well as the NYC architecture. I have to paint; it is my life’s blood.  Paint and canvas have become instruments for me to express my feelings and be heard.