Allison Zuckerman — The Joy Project

Continuing the Art of Play
July 13, 2022

Artist: Allison Zuckerman

Join Zoom Meeting / Class
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87618016665

Allison Zuckerman (born 1990) is an American contemporary artist and painter. Zuckerman's pop-surrealist work fuses painting with digital printing techniques and appropriates various art historical tropes and references to "recast the submissive, romanticized female muses painted by male artists throughout Western art history as commanding, empowered figures" Zuckerman creates an alternative narrative by remixing the female sitters of prominent male artists into a feminist 21st century.

Gallery Press Release | Ross + Kramer

“For this exhibition Zuckerman has made a new body of work that celebrates Lichtenstein (1923-1997), one of her painting heroes, whose approach to image making she has in many ways emulated and built upon in her own practice. Zuckerman sees Lichtenstein as an artist whose work evinces a deep investment in Art History that he presents using the visual language of his own time. Whereas Lichtenstein used the benday dot to signify the advent of mechanically reproduced imagery and mass media, Zuckerman uses the square motif of the pixel. In other words: the pixel in her work is the contemporary analogue to Lichtenstein’s benday dot. Passage of rhinestone grids similarly stand in for the benday dot motif while also referencing the advent of Instagram filters.

Focusing specifically on two Lichtenstein works “Brushstroke Still Life with Box” (1997) and “Brushstroke Still Life with Coffee Pot” (1997), both made at the end of the artist’s life, Zuckerman incorporated elements of each into her four new paintings made specifically for this exhibition. She sees her new works as extending his final body of work into the current moment. “Elvin Queen” (2022) features the open box as well as some of his signature brushstroke motifs from “Brushstroke Still Life with Box” (1997). “A Sudden Splash of Insight” (2022) features Lichtenstein’s coffee pot as well as a mask that Lichtenstein had lifted from Picasso, which Picasso had lifted from an unknown West African maker. In this way, Zuckerman has constructed and added herself into an art historical lineage. She sees her work having the modus operandi of a palimpsest: the work adds upon what exists already, art historically, while leaving room for her own innovation and spin.”

Website

Instagram

Metal Magazine

Arts Management Magazine

Ross + Kramer Gallery Show | Different Strokes with Different Folks

Warm-up + Project:

We are taking our inspiration from the fantastical collage paintings of Alison Zuckerman.

There are several ways to approach this project.

You may select a painting that you like from an artist in history and recreate it in a collaged style using mixed media. You may collect images from the internet of the original painting to use. You may use magazines, your own work cut-up, photos, drawing, and painting to create your individual project.

Zuckerman uses multiple artists in any given piece, this is an option.

Take a look at the support materials provided below. Come up with your own inspiration and get started.

There is no wrong way to do this! I would keep the initial inspiration simple by choosing one painting or image to be the base for your project.

Then imagine throwing all the materials you can, cutting, gluing, painting, and drawing to create your final project.

Let's have some wild summer fun!