Zipora Fried at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Though her lined-based, labor-intensive drawings have been described as resisting language in favor of the emotional potential of color, Zipora Fried’s own words best describe the inspiration for her latest work.  She explains that the ‘sky and mud colored lizards, soft-toned cicada shells, sunsets echoing exploding worlds…,” the tides and sands of Lamu Island, Kenya prompted her vivid color choices.  Short repeated pencil strokes and tonal variety make each image appear to shimmer in an unfixed meditation on her experience of the island.  (On view in Chelsea at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through Jan 18th).

Zipora Fried, To Those Who Know How to Laugh, colored pencil on archival museum board, 80 x 54 inches, 2019.

Zipora Fried at On Stellar Rays

Thirty foot long sheets of paper, covered in Zipora Fried’s handmade marks in colored pencil and graphite hang like banners from the ceiling of On Stellar Rays, announcing the amount of time and effort Fried put into her project. Installed in folds, viewers don’t see the full extent of Fried’s mark-making but can still absorb the deeply calming cobalt and delft blue colors. (On the Lower East Side through Dec 4th).

Zipora Fried, installation view of ‘Late October’ at On Stellar Rays, Oct 2016.
Zipora Fried, installation view of ‘Late October’ at On Stellar Rays, Oct 2016.

Zipora Fried at On Stellar Rays

Beautiful organic forms, a trace of violence in a smear of blood, a mysteriously hazy landscape and a young woman crowned with a wig of wool and hidden by a totemic mask by Zipora Fried create an atmosphere of enticing mystery at her impressive solo show at On Stellar Rays on the Lower East Side (through October 12th).

Zipora Fried, Installation view of ‘I Hope the Moon Explodes,’ at On Stellar Rays, September, 2014.