Zoë Shulman
Artist's Statement
My work employs painting, drawing, and digital mixed media to visualize geometries that subvert traditional painting canon. These geometries emerge from mapping the theoretical spaces described by post-structuralism, geography, complexity, psychology, psychedelics, feminism, politics, and cyber and queer culture.
I work both on and off the wall, drawing attention to and confusing a viewer’s awareness of their own body’s movements within illusionistic, sculptural, and architectural spaces. To achieve this, I design, sculpt, paint, and install substrates to activate unique surface qualities that emphasize the viewer’s physical relation to the work and enhance its overall illusion of movement.
Throughout my work, brightly colored Cartesian grids, fractals, concentric squares, polygons, and circular forms connect and contradict diametrically opposed perspectival planes to reveal a greater relativity beyond closed systems. As a result, the viewer may experience recognition, confusion, order, and a chance to decipher space, yet be overwhelmed by flatness.
Ultimately, I intend to discover how these optical tensions can topologically bend painting to the point of ideological collapse and reform it into a more intersectional medium with multi-dimensional and cross-disciplinary potential.
Artist's Abbreviated Biography
Zoë Shulman is a painter from Austin, Texas. In 2013, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. During her studies, she traveled abroad to Italy and Ireland, where she developed her artistic practice amidst rich European cultures.
Since graduation, Shulman has exhibited works at international venues, as well as local galleries, museums, and universities. Notable exhibitions include “The 2017 Biennial: Origins in Geometry” at the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas, “The 2014 Minnesota Biennial” at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, and “The 20th Anniversary Alumni Exhibition” at the Burren College of Art in Ireland. Her work is also a part of the MADI Museum’s permanent collection.
Additionally, Shulman has completed artist residencies at The Banff Centre and The Vermont Studio Center. Here in Austin, she is represented by Camiba Gallery, where she has had three major solo exhibitions: “Circuit Topology”, “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government”, and “Neuroplastic”. In March 2022, she will begin pursuing a Master of Arts in Art Therapy and Counseling at Southwestern College and New Earth Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Artworks by Zoë Shulman are included in the following Camiba Gallery exhibits:
Zoë Shulman: Neuroplastic 2022
INSIGHT: CAMIBAart Artists’ Perspectives on 2020
Zoë Shulman: The Allegory of Good and Bad Government - January 2018
Zoë Shulman ~ artist
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Zoë Shulman ~ Ketamine VII: Into the Tesseract ~ 2021
$840.00 ~ 20” x 16” ~ graphite on dot paper; printed on aluminum
Zoë Shulman ~ Ketamine V ~ 2021
$840.00 ~ 20” x 16” ~ graphite on dot paper; printed on aluminum
Zoë Shulman ~ Cascade ~ 2015
$640.00 ~ 17" x 21" framed ~ photocopied India Ink drawing and acrylic - developed into cyanotype
Zoë Shulman ~ Mountain Frequency I ~ 2015
$640.00 ~ 17" x 21" framed ~ collaged photocopies of folded India Ink drawings - developed into cyanotype
Zoë Shulman ~ Square Not Square IV (2D) ~ 2018
$600.00 ~ 12” x 12” framed ~ acrylic & colored pencil on paper
Zoë Shulman; Self-Evident I; 2018
$580.00; 8” x 8”; Acrylic on wood panel
Zoë Shulman ~ Ketagon V ~ 2021
$550.00 ~ 13.25” x 13.25” framed ~ colored pencil on paper