Zipora Fried ‘Late October’

On Stellar Rays is pleased to announce Late October, Zipora Fried’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.

Late October presents three distinct bodies of work, rooted in Fried’s rigorous drawing practice which persistently explores the liminal space between material and psychological themes. Several 30-foot long works on paper will be suspended from the ceiling of the gallery. These monochromatic drawings are densely covered in Fried’s signature line work–in each delft blue, helioblue, and cobalt green colored pencil, and graphite pencil.

Black and Nougat drawings combine dark and neutral colors in looser gestures akin to script. Although loosely organized in linear bands reading left to right and top to bottom, Fried’s gesture rejects the use of language. Fried favors instead a phenomenological reading of the sum total; an essence of sensory experience, or an obscure inner mood.

Inspired by Japanese folklore and Yokai mythology, Fried’s Barbara series also refers to the Greek “barbarous,” evoking the uncanny or foreign. These ink drawings are integral to Fried’s daily drawing practice, however previously unexhibited and among her most personal and intimate works. Monsters and demons, combined with figurative and natural elements, conjure the strange recesses of a shared consciousness.

Fried desires to push the process and experience of drawing beyond its often peripheral relationship to other media to a fully charged state of sentient awareness. Her unique approach is achieved through an unrelenting and decades-long commitment to her practice.

On Stellar Rays (press release)