This new group of works from Kes Zapkus fluctuates between polarities of structure and romanticism. Frameworks of the artist’s felt experiences underlie this painterly abstract form. Zapkus’ tendency to present complex informational fields relates to his fascination with parallels to musical composition and the digital world. Each distinctly individual painting is a facet of a gradual, five-year cyclical, evolutionary process.

American Past Times & The Tenacity of Memory - The history of the United States is comparatively short, but as rich and complex as the cultures that comprise it. This exhibition addresses that history from two viewpoints. American Past Times clocks are about passage of time told by the continuously variable position of clock hands pointing to and passing over small and familiar objects, a chorus of bits and pieces humming their histories to the tune of a cultural anthem. Bi-frontal Pairs are evocations of characters from nursery rhymes, fairy tales, old stories and cultural icons constructed in pairs, connected back-to-back. Each figure is the obverse of its mated figural coin. Each pair poses with evocative moxie.

For a year, living in Bamako, Mali, Francois Deschamps rode in the front seat of taxis. He examined the items displayed on the dashboards or hanging from the rear view mirrors as the slowly disintegrating taxis sat stalled in traffic or careened along the dusty streets. The dashboard became a metaphor for the driver’s personality as the chance juxtapositions of interior vs. exterior were a metaphor for Deschamps’ visual experience in Bamako. These photographs are the result.