“Unconscious Dimensionality: A Study of Perception” Opens May 11, 2012 at OCAC

The Oxford Community Art Center’s (OCAC) May 2012 exhibit “Unconscious Dimensionality: A Study of Perception” features the artwork of Middletown Pendleton Art Center artist Stephanie Zing in its upcoming show which opens 5 to 9 p.m., Friday, May 11^th, and runs through May 30th.  In conjunction with the art show, Zing will read her original poetry in the North Parlor at 7 p.m. on May 11^th and her artwork will be on display in the main gallery.  Her approach for the show explores the use of internal and other focused labeling in self-perception through a playful combination of found object sculptures and paintings and the written word.

“Why do I find myself attracted to or repelled from a person or object? What value or effect do labels have in life or on self-perception or self-esteem? What do ‘beautiful, fat, smart, kind, nice, talented, ugly’ or any of a thousand other labels really mean and who decides?  They’re just words, after all,” said Zing about the starting point for her artworks.

Zing is primarily a self-taught artist.  She has been writing and publishing her poetry for more than 30 years.  “I’m interested in further exploring the use of labels and will be looking for grant funding to publish a chapbook of the poetry from this show, along with photographs of the accompanying artwork with the hopes of using the book as a mechanism to teach young women and those who have suffered abuses to rewrite their own story.”  While she normally works in the mediums of fused and stained glass, her body of work also includes collage and assembled works and primitive style paintings.

Zing states, “In the proverbial peeling of the onion, there is the opportunity for laughing at oneself and seeing a lighter side.  My approach is to uncover the monsters and dolls within each label and give these pieces a life in somewhat of a ‘three-ring circus’ feel by combining the visual with the written poems.”

 

There is an interactive portion of the art show where viewers are encouraged to explore their own use of self-labeling.

Zing is an emerging public artist and was one of three artists on the team for the “Play Me, I’m Yours” piano project for OCAC in 2010.  She is one of 26 artists nationally whose studios are featured in the Spring 2012 issue of Studios Magazine and her “how-to” articles for making fused glass artworks are regularly featured in Fired Arts & Crafts Magazine.  She teaches workshops and classes and works full time as an artist from her studio which is currently being relocated to Florida.