This painting series marks a further step in Brenda Zlamany’s ongoin investigation of the relationship between color and light. Zlamany, whose subjects range from portraiture and still life to landscapes, has chosen three subjects—artist Chuck Close, boxer Evander Holyfield, and
poet/critic John Yau—the identities of whom are explored through a repetition of
their respective images on various color grounds. The portrait panels are
partnered with other panels that hold monochromatic color which, for the
artist, signifies the representation of light in both its physical and psychological effects.

Brenda Zlamany, portraitist and Chuck Close, famous American artist, discuss the effects of various color backgrounds on the persona of a subject in each of the 20 color portraits included. An essay by Jon Yau considers how portraiture memoralizes the peron in the moment.

“I achieve the ground color and the figure-ground relation by applying and
manipulating ten to twenty tinted glaze layers on a completed underpainting, one layer each day. As I glaze, I work through the spectrum, stopping at a selected color. It’s risky…in glazing from red to
indigo, for example, it might be necessary to sacrifice luminosity for depth. In
this process, the painting goes from being a "likeness" to having a soul.”

– Brenda Zlamany

This catalog was published on the occasion of the exhibition:
Brenda Zlamany Figure Ground: Color Studies of Chuck Close, Evander
Holyfield, and John Yau
for the University Gallery, University Fine Arts Center, University of
Masachusetts, Amherst, February 3 - March 16, 2001.

Brenda Zlamany is an emerging artist who works out of her studio in
Brooklyn.

www.brendazlamany.com