LOCAL ARTIST GETS HER WINGS
THIS week I had the pleasure of speaking with local artist Zane Sutra who is about to launch her latest exhibition ‘I’m Just Standing Here’ at the Athena Room at the SolArt Gallery, Dublin on October 6.
I have been a fan of this lovely, elegant, extremely talented and unassuming lady since attending her emotive and thought provoking exhibition ‘ The World of Empty Chairs’ on Castle Hill in 2014 and later her hauntingly seductive and brilliantly provocative French postcard exhibition ‘ Them’ at the Presentation Centre in 2016.
Zane, who has been living here in Ireland for the past 15 years, says that she was lucky to be born in Latvia which she describes as ‘one of the most beautiful small countries in the world, with a population of just under two million. Every third person is an artist, musician, writer or related to the arts, and every second one sings’.
Zane spoke about her very happy Latvian childhood: ‘I was raised at the Opera House, between rehearsals and performances and always lived in two worlds – the real and the imaginary world of angels, butterflies and snowflakes.’
She began drawing at age five and when her parents sent her to ‘ the most exclusive Art School of the time’, she was in pure heaven. ‘ The teachers taught me about freedom and gave me my first pair of wings.’
Life, marriage and four children clipped those ‘wings’ considerably, Zane laughed. ‘But I stored my wings safely, so just a few years ago when I needed to fly again, I found them’.
And through her amazing work she has been flying ever since.
Zane loves fashion - ‘ the magic and the fun of it’. Her daughter Teodora is one of Ireland’s top fashion models and she has been allowed to use Teodora’s fashion images for her work.
‘I’m Just Standing Here’ will have elements of astonishing outfits from some of Ireland’s leading designers and the beautiful work of hairdressers Kazum and Jenni Crawford, images from Emily Quinn, Leon Farrell, Anita Sadowska, Kip Carroll and many, many more. ‘ This show is about collective morals, obsessions, and the consequences,’ said Zane.
‘When I paint, I enter into another mysterious space. It’s magic and divine. My paintings are collaged stories of unconscious places visited. I am becoming a medium. Painted element are codes belonging to my personal history, smoke, darkness, water. My work is about sexuality, celebrity and mortality.’
Zane is currently shortlisted for the Hennessy Portrait Prize and her painting ‘Dun Laoghaire Fox’ will be displayed at the National Art Gallery this November. She is also one of 70 artists selected by the The Art Rooms in London to exhibit her work.
This is an incredible opportunity for Zane to enter the world of famous galleries and private collectors and no one deserves it better than this graceful lady with a remarkable talent living and working amongst us here in Enniscorthy. And I would like to avail of this occasion to wish her every success with her exhibition from all of us here in her hometown.