John Zurier (born 1956) is an abstract
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
born in Santa Monica, CA, known for his minimal,
near-monochrome paintings. His work has shown across the American West as well as in Europe and Japan. He has worked in Reykjavik, Iceland and Berkeley, Ca.
Education
John Zurier received a BA degree in
Landscape Architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1979 and a
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.)
is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...
degree in
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
from The University of California at Berkeley in 1983.
Career and exhibition
John Zurier's work has been shown in galleries and museums since 1980. Zurier was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial in New York City, the 2008 Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju, South Korea. and the 2012 São Paulo Biennial in São Paulo, Brazil. Zurier is represented by ''Anglim Gilbert Gallery'' in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, ''Peter Blum Gallery'' in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and by ''Galerie Nordenhake'' in
Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropoli ...
and
Berlin, Germany
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...
. Zurier lives and works in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
.
Style and technique
Zurier paints abstract, near-monochrome paintings whose colors range from muted tones to vibrant hues.
Zurier's abstract paintings are informed by
abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
, Post-War French painting, and Japanese aesthetics. His main interest is in simplicity, surface modulation, and color, as those are tied to people's experience of time. Zurier's reductive paintings show his dedication to color, the material fact of painting, and the history of painting. His soft-hued abstract paintings play at crossing the line into representation with the sensation of nature, the silence of luminous weather, and the human touch. Capturing qualities of light and weather effects, Zurier employs a range of brushstrokes and surface treatments, varying from revealing the texture of the canvas or obscuring it with layers of thick
impasto
''Impasto'' is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provide ...
.
Zurier's work has been described as transcending the gestural and material to evoke the emotional. While minimal, Zurier's practice is not
minimalist
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
, but rather composed of quiet works that focus on the structure and possibilities of a brushstroke. “I think the Japanese painter
Ike No Taiga
was a Japanese painter and calligrapher born in Kyoto during the Edo period. Together with Yosa Buson, he perfected the ''bunjinga'' (or '' nanga'') genre. The majority of his works reflected his passion for classical Chinese culture and painti ...
723–1776was right,” Zurier has said, “the most difficult thing to achieve in painting is creating a space where absolutely nothing has been painted.”
Selected public collections
*Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
*Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
*Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, ME
*Microsoft Corporation Art Collection, Redmond, WA
*Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
*Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
*Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
*San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
*University of California, San Francisco Art Collection, San Francisco, CA
*Principia College, Elsah, IL
Exhibitions
;Selected solo exhibitions
Zurier: Sometimes (Over Me the Mountain), BERG Contemporary, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2018''Mind of Winter«, Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin, Germany, 2018''Without Distance, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY, 2017''the Very End of the Blue Sky, The Club, Tokyo, Japan, 2017''and Troubled Air, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2017''Zurier - The Last Summer Light, Office Baroque, Brussels, Belgium, 2016''Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin, Germany, 2016''North and Night, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden, 2015''of the Future, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY, 2015''
*John Zurier: Matrix 255", Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, 2014
*John Zurier: Recent Paintings, Lawrence Markey, San Antonio, TX, 2014
*Knowledge is a blue naiveté, Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin, Germany, 2013
*A spring a thousand years ago," Peter Blum Gallery, NY, 2013
*John Zurier: Watercolors," Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 2013
*John Zurier, Patrick de Brock Gallery, Knokke, Belgium, 2012
*John Zurier Paintings and Watercolors, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 2011
*White Paintings and Night Paintings, Peter Blum Chelsea, NY, 2010
*Nordic Paintings, Galería Javier López, Madrid, 2010
*John Zurier - New Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, June 2009
*John Zurier, Galeria Javier López, Madrid, Spain, 2007
*John Zurier: New Works, Peter Blum SoHo, New York, NY, 2007
*John Zurier: New Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 2005
*John Zurier: New Paintings, Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2005
*John Zurier, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, 2003
*John Zurier: Oblaka, Peer, London, 2003
*John Zurier, Gallery Paul Anglim, San Francisco, 2001
*John Zurier Paintings 1997-1999, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco (catalogue with interview by Lawrence Rinder), 2000
*John Zurier: Monotypes, Aurobora Press, San Francisco, CA, 1999
*John Zurier: Abstract Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 1994
*John Zurier: Monotypes, Concourse Gallery, Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco, CA, 1990
*John Zurier: New Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 1989
*John Zurier, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 1986
*John Zurier, Pamela Auchincloss Gallery, Santa Barbara, 1985
*John Zurier, Dana Reich Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1984
*John Zurier, Sun Gallery, Hayward, CA, 1984
;Selected group exhibitions
* ttp://www.gallerypauleanglim.com/Press_Releases/Entries/2015/11/28_A_Studio_In_Iceland.html''A Studio In Iceland, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, San Francisco, CA, November 2015 - January 2016''br>Trail: Contemporary Prints, Drawings, and Photographs from the Collection, Colby College Museum of Art, 2015''São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil, 2012''Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, 2010''Tableau, Cheim and Read Gallery, New York, NY, 2010''A Hundred or So Stars Visible to the Naked Eye, Berkeley Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2009''''Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea, 2008''from the Concrete, El Centro College, Dallas, TX, 2007''and Surface: Works on Paper, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY, 2006''Between Promise and Fulfillment, curated by David Austin, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2003''
*Minimalism: Then and Now, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, 2001
*Practice and Process: New Painterly Abstraction in California, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena and the Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA, 1998
*Three Painters: Anne Appleby, Gregg Renfrow, John Zurier, Arts Benicia Center, Benicia, CA, 1996
*Donald Feasel, Philip Morsberger, John Zurier: Recent Paintings, Shasta College Gallery, Redding, CA, 1993
*Chain Reaction Six, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1990
*Sixteen Young Bay Area Artists, Colorado State University Art Gallery, Fort Collins, CO, 1988
*Expressive Abstraction, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA, 1986
*MFA/UCB/1984, University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, 1984
Monotype projects
*Aurobora Press, San Francisco, CA, 1998 and 2002
*Garner Tullis Workshop, Santa Barbara, CA, 1989-1990
*Garner Tullis Workshop, Emeryville, CA, 1985-1986
Awards and teaching
*John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 2010
*PresentEminent Adjunct Professor, California College of the Arts, 2006
Books, monographs and catalogs
Zurier: Paintings 1981-2014, (artist monograph), Essay by Robert Storr and foreword by Lawrence Rinder, 2015''
*2012 São Paulo Bienal, The Imminence of Poetics, (catalog), Luis Pérez-Oramas, Tobi Maier, André Severo, Isabela Villanueva, 2012
*Repeat After Me - Poems by Bill Berkson, Watercolors by John Zurier, Published by Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 2011
*2010 California Biennial: Orange County Museum of Art, (catalog), Sarah C. Bancroft, 2010
*To: Night (Contemporary Representations of the Night), (catalog), curated by Joachim Pissarro, Mara Hoberman, Julia Moreno, 2008
*The 7th Gwangju Biennial: 2008 Annual Report, (catalog), curated by Okwui Enwezor, et al., 2008
*John Zurier Night Paintings: 2007-2008, (catalog), Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2008
*Pope, Alexander, John Zurier: New Paintings, (catalog), Text from “The Essay on Man” San Francisco, CA: Gallery Paule Anglim, 2005
*EXODUS: Between Promise and Fulfillment, (catalog), Essay by Anthony Downey, Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge: Cambridge, England, 2003
*Rinder, Lawrence, et al. Whitney Biennial 2002, (catalog), New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2002
*John Zurier Paintings 1997-1999, (catalog), Interview with Lawrence Rinder, San Francisco, CA: Gallery Paule Anglim, 2000
*Practice and Process: New Painterly Abstraction in California, (catalog), Armory Center for the Arts and the Richmond Art Center, Pasadena and Richmond, CA, 1998
*Abstraction Absolved: Ten Bay Area Painters, (catalog) Introduction by Keith Lachowicz, Oakland, CA: Mills College Art Gallery, 1996
*Garner Tullis Workshop: Monotypes, (catalog) Introduction by Memory Holloway, Praz/Vully, Switzerland, Galerie Au Poisson Rouge, 1986
References
External links
John Zurier: Artists’ websiteAnglim Gilbert GalleryPeter Blum GalleryGalerie NordenhakeLawerence Markey Inc.Patrick De Brock GalleryGaleria Javier Lopez
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zurier, John
American abstract artists
American contemporary painters
20th-century American painters
20th-century American male artists
American male painters
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
Artists from San Francisco
Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area
Living people
1956 births