The Fissure in the Flame

Louis Gribaudo, Nancy Neill, and Julie Zahn explore chance, pattern, chaos, and order. Like a dancing fire whose predictable form still manages to hypnotize onlookers, each artist in The Fissure in the Flame employs repetitive processes and vivid colors to pull viewers into the image. Neill layers oil pastels on paper and cuts through the viscous pigments to reveal breaks in the deep red that coats her canvases. Utilizing our unavoidable draw to red as an energizing color, she creates a warm swath of landscape with small breaks in the wave for our eyes to rest. Gribaudo cycles through small and repetitive processes to allow for the minute differences to reveal themselves as the binding tie holding a canvas together. Finding inspiration from entropy, the chance encounters and unpredictable imagery that reveals itself through his process is the driving force behind his work. Julie Zahn layers pigments through various processes and mediums, mostly utilizing techniques found in printmaking. Inspired by beauty in nature, the negative space on Julie’s prints are as impactful as sunlight slipping through leaves as they’re brushed in a breeze.
All three artists connect their imagery through the cracks in between moments, the breaks in the waves, and the details that slice through the sum of its parts.