the works of jo zider

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ABOUT JO

RESUME/EXHIBITIONS JO ZIDER

EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS:
2004 Bradford Street Gallery, "Just War", Kemah, Texas, featuring bronze work: "Food
          for Oil Program", "The Liberator-Bell ", "Body Count I & II", also oil relief:
          "Possession: A War That Never Ends".
2003 Art League of Houston, "2003 Open Juried Show", Karol Kramer & Dr. Robert Card.
          Featuring bronze work: "Food for Oil Program".
          Art League of Houston, "Bone Palace Banquet", Sculpture Court Installation, works
          in bronze, steel and clay.
2002 Contemporary Crafts Center Houston, Artist's Hall, Raku fired hand-carved tile work:
          "Windows Series".
2002 CGJung Center, "Crossings: A WIVLA Collaboration", featuring oil relief:
          "Renewable Assets".
2001 Art Venture Gallery, "Urban Zen" featuring: Relic series of raku clay forms.
2001 CGJung Center, One person exhibit: "Spirit of the Tree", featuring hand-carved,
          Raku fired clay tile relief wall hangings: "Windows".
2000 Blaffer Gallery, "Houston Area Exhibition", juried, featuring raku clay sculpture:
          "Relics".
1996 Omni Hotel, Palm Court: One person invitational show for SouthernUS/Japan Speakers
          Conference: "Revelation of the Shadow" series of relief paintings and sculptures.
1987 Second Annual Monarch Tile National Ceramic Competition, San Angelo MFA.
1985 Nimbus Gallery, Dallas, Texas: "East Meets West" with Chuang Che; new works in Kabuki themes.
          New American Talent: Laguna Gloria Art Museum: Patterson Sims, Whitney Museum

PUBLICATIONS:

2000 "Crossings: A WIVLA Anthology of Collaborations"; Writers and visual artists,
          including "Renewable Assets" by Jo Zider and Jere Pfister.
1996 "Revelation of the Shadow". Catalogue-Invitational exhibit-Southern U.S./Japan
          Speakers' Conference, Omni Hotel, Houston, Texas.
1986 "Kabuki: An Artist's Sculptural Interpretation" by Professor Stanleigh H. Jones, Jr.,
          Pamona College, Claremont, California.
1985 "Kabuki Sculptures by Jo Zider", Ceramics Monthly by editor William Hunt,
          Columbus, Ohio, February issue.
1984 "Kabuki Drama in Ceramics" by Carol Everingham, Art Critic, Houston Post, Oct.6.
1982 "From Policewoman to Artist", by Harriet Edleson, Chronicle Staff, Houston Chronicle,
          November 4.
1981 "Traces" by Marvin Moon, Editor, "Trends", Texas Art Education Association Portfolio
          Edition of Juried Works, Austin, Texas.
          "Portraying Nature" by Judy Williams, Editor, "Accent", Vol. VII, Number 6, January.
1980 "Jo Zider" by Ron Jarvis, "ArtCraft Magazine", Oct/November issue.

SELECTED CORPORATE COLLECTIONS:
Japan/America Society of Houston, Dr. Watanabe
Enron Corporation, Houston, Texas.
Hitachi Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
Northwestern Life and Mutual of Milwaukee, Houston
Clann and Pearson, Attorneys, Houston
Carrington, Coleman, Sloman and Blumenthal, Attorneys, Dallas
Curtis Owen, Attorney, Tyler, Texas and Omaha, Nebraska
TCT Development, Houston.
Cadillac Fairview, Southwest Region, Inc. Dallas.
Elf Aquitaine, Houston Division.
Dallas Bank & Trust, Dallas.
Silvani Enterprises, Houston.
Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Johnson & Williams, Attorneys, Houston.
Comanche County Hospital, Lawton, Oklahoma.
Wesley Grove, Texas Commerce Bank, Houston, Texas

JO ZIDER-Artist Statement

Art and life. They are inseparable. Art must say what we know of life but of which we cannot speak.                                                                                                                                 Art can speak a truth that life hesitates to acknowledge. So, I am reluctant to write about my work because it is the visual image that eventually must communicate the message and for another to comment.
I offer a brief explanation here of the iconography and development of the Archetypes of GRIEF, BLAME, and HOPE:

In the relief paintings, the physical layering of the painted illusion over the sculpted paper relief , a transparency and connection to the historical figure is made. My interest in Kabuki , Noh and Bunraku, the traditional theatre of Japan, for over twenty years now, really has nothing to do with the culture or people of Japan. The significance rather is the literature of their theatre and the characters portrayed as interpreted from ancient stories from mainland China and Thailand. Chikamatsu borrowed the characters from these ancient stories and placed them into then contemporary situations and events for his plays. I have done the same, bringing the characters' roles into modern times and events.

Beneath the painted illusion of the face of Ken Saro-Wiwa is the Archetype of GRIEF: Princess Kariya suffers banishment and the threat of death, during the dramatic events surrounding her father, Lord Sugawara, accused of treason against the Emperor. Saro-Wiwa was denounced when he spoke out to the world against the atrocities in his Ogoni homeland, and falsely accused of treason, was hanged in 1995. The middle panel is BLAME ; one can "read" the references quite literally. The right hand panel is HOPE: a declaration to dispel fear, to encourage tolerance and celebrate diversity through a new birth.