Bio and Statement (downloadable pdf)
Bio
Tamar Zinn is a New York based visual artist whose paintings and drawings reflect her deep engagement with the sensory experiences of the natural world. “Standing in the Stream” is Zinn’s 8th solo exhibition with Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NYC. She has exhibited her paintings and drawings in venues in the United States and Europe, as well as periodically curating group exhibits. In 2023, she was elected to membership in American Abstract Artists. Her work has been placed in public and private collections throughout the United States, including Citibank, Fidelity, IBM, McKinsey, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and NYU-Langone Medical Center.
Statement
As a visual artist, I am driven by curiosity about what is possible, rather than seeking certainty. Working intuitively and without a preconceived endpoint, I let the work lead the way. The thread that runs through it all is the embrace of the transitory nature of our experiences. This has informed my work for many years, even as the work itself has fluctuated between landscape, geometric abstraction, and the current work, nature-infused abstraction. The challenge is to convey the passage of time while making something that is concrete and unchanging. Through imagery that is suggestive of the natural world, it is my intention to evoke sense memories that are simultaneously familiar and otherworldly. I navigate spaces that are sometimes tranquil and atmospheric, and at other times more complex and active.
The painting series Unseen Voices (2023-2025) marks a shift from my preoccupation with light-infused atmospheric space towards a denser and more layered imagery that now includes gestural marks. The two series that preceded this, Where I Find Myself (2020-2021) and Behind Closed Eyes (2018-2019), were informed by my daily practice of sitting in stillness. Particles of light slowly rearrange themselves across the field as colors shimmer and recede, creating a flow between stillness and drama. In those series, the shift from painting singular images to multi-panel installations reflected my acceptance that nothing is fixed, and that our perceptions are comprised of a multiplicity of moments. Additionally, the formal structure of multi-panel paintings gave me the freedom to seemingly fix in place that which is changing and impermanent.
Drawing is central to my studio practice. For me, to draw is to breathe and to breathe is to experience a fullness of self. In this way, my drawings are expressly rooted in the moments of their making. Each gesture is a choreography of movements, and once made, the marks are sometimes obscured but all that was there remains. While the gestures may be evocative of many things, my drawings are the thing itself. The balance between transitory and formal concerns is revealed through the interaction of gesture and the field. For each series, attention to the unique nature of the field grounds me in a formal structure. Developing the field is a slow and methodical process in which multiple layers of charcoal are gently rubbed and sometimes erased. It is only after the field is established that I turn my attention to drawing the lines, an act that is filled with risk and where I feel most exposed.
AUGUST 2025