Paintings by Zane York

“An oyster speaks to a loaf of bread, an apple to a piece of cloth, a carnation to a clock.” ~ John Berger

The French phrase for what we call a still life is nature morte. How else would it stay still long enough to paint? And yet Berger has these inanimate objects in conversation with each other, and, of course, with us, the viewers. On the one bristle, a memento mori, the reminder of mortality; on the other, the material presence, the carnality, of life. What a conversation! Well, really, can you have one without the other? I should be so lucky as to have a plateful of macaroons on my deathbed, even with the fly announcing (Diptera being so very classical): “Et in Arcadia ego.”

I think I only really only got into still lives at an exhibit of Chardin at the Met years ago. Those peaches! From what I understand, old paint and canvas doesn’t taste so good, but still…. Those canvases really made me think of the phrase “still life,” so evocative in the storm of life, the hurrying of days. Does this stillness say the same thing to you as it does to me? “Pause a moment, friend, because one day you will be out of time.”

You can tell from my blog that I was destined to like Zane York’s work, which is showing at Causey Contemporary in Williamsburg until January 22 in a show called “Stewards.” These digital images give but a small hint of the pleasures of his work.

Note to unknown benefactor/Secret Santa: you can buy me this one or the cicada.