FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MARQUEE PROJECTS is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition featuring sculptures by Jennifer Sirey and paintings by Nola Zirin. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 30, from 5-7pm.

Both artists in Container explore areas of geometric abstraction in their practices, as well as the tension between what is hidden and what is exposed. But while sharing these similarities, they create very different bodies of work.

Jennifer Sirey builds living sculptures merging architecture and biology. Inside the logical structure of rectangular glass tanks, integrating drilled holes, blown glass, and found objects, she mixes wine and acetobacter cultures (bacteria essential in fermenting kombucha and various vinegars), then tilts and shifts them in a slow, gradual process allowing the fluids to interact, grow, and form fleshy geometrical planes. These microbial cultivations embody natural cycles of life, growth, and decay, while the see-through skins of the pieces expose those internal transformations to the outside world. The artist asks, “What secret is incubating there? What has gone through its crisis to emerge anew?”

Nora Zirin starts a painting by thinking about its frame and edges, then isolates what goes inside. The enclosing borders act as protection, a kind of sacred space where ideas and shapes can freely occur. Experiencing the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia, Zirin paints while listening to music, especially jazz, and literally hears color, transferring her deeply felt physical, emotional, and spiritual responses to the canvas, applying layers in both controlled and freewheeling gestures. Inspired by many influences, including the metaphysics of Wassily Kandinsky and the dynamism of the Italian Futurists, she creates a striking array of primary forms and the silent moments between them. The artist confides, “I have a lot of secrets and cover them up in my paintings.”