John Zinsser, “Screen Time,” (2007). Alkyd enamel and oil on canvas. 66 × 72 in. Image courtesy of JG Contemporary, New York.

From the Brooklyn Rail

by Stephanie Buhmann
JG Contemporary
February 8, 2008 - March 8, 2008

John Zinsser has always found maximum expression in reductive abstract painting, simplifying his visual language to convey clarity of thought and sensory excitement. Despite their straightforwardness, Zinsser’s elegant compositions are never predictable and offer a strong sense of the transcendental.

In a recent interview with Cindi di Marzo, Zinsser mentioned that an early influence while a student at Yale was the present-tense-consciousness typified by James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus and Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and that he saw Abstract Expressionism as a continuation of these authors’ “open-eyed manner of describing experience.”

Through its distillation of influences, Zinsser’s work formulates its own witty dialogue with 20th-Century abstract painting. [Read More…]