MARCH 8 - APRIL 19, 2025

In this exhibition Judy Barie has taken the opportunity to arrange her work in a way that focuses on the negative that is as equally important as the positive shapes. She arranges them thoughtfully, organically, and with subtle and bold placements, resulting in a rich flow of color and patterns.

The paintings are created on birch wood panels, by mixing and pouring latex and oil paints simultaneously. Many layers result in a balance of unforeseen elements and happy accidents, which the artist celebrates. For Barie, painting is an intimate, self-involved craft, a gestural marriage of materials. The resulting abstract compositions highlight her pure love of paint.

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PRACTICE +/- shares the contemplations and visual dynamism of artist Jordan Wong (WONGFACE). Building on his recent exhibition, Play is Infinite, at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh (on view in 2025), this body of work furthers Wong’s imaginative exploration of the Ultimate Self, the endless possibilities of leveling up in life, and the transformative power of play.

The artwork is inspired by the question, 'What am I practicing?' It stems from the artist's ongoing examination of his own thoughts, feelings, and emotions that are repeated both consciously and—most importantly—subconsciously. The work also celebrates the philosophy that play inspires practice and, in turn, fosters greater play, emphasizing the power that comes from complete freedom to explore, experiment, and express.

Spanning a range of media, the exhibition blends traditional techniques like screen printing and aquatint etching with contemporary industrial processes such as digital UV printing and laser engraving. These dynamic methods reflect Wong’s layered approach, echoing his personal journey of identity as an artist and belonging as a second-generation Chinese American.

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JANUARY 11 - MARCH 2, 2025

At the intersection of figuration and the abstract, Karl Mullen's works are a clarion call to the self — for all of us — to hold on to hope and a dream of a return to decency, democracy, community, and love.

“We are all bombarded nonstop with bad news, insufferable political jockeying, advertisements for things we not need, and the inhuman acceleration of daily life. And so I paint, mark make, and create images, not only as a refuge but a bulwark against an avalanche of lies and despair." — Karl Mullen

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NOVEMBER 2 - DECEMBER 22, 2024

Cory Bonnet traditionally uses salvaged and reclaimed materials to create his art, but returns to his foundation of drawing with India ink and pigments on raw butcher paper in this new series of contemporary nostalgic scenes of industrial Pittsburgh and the surrounding area.

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SEPTEMBER 14 - OCTOBER 27, 2024

Though we might have different opinions, we all share this same land. The artists featured in this exhibit offer their own points of view of landscape – from abstraction to realism. We hope this exhibit inspires you to see our beautiful world with new perspectives.

Featuring works by:

Rachel Farley

Dale Luce

Patrick Ruane

Amanda Scuglia

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Our exhibitions series at THE PORTAL , in partnership with Bakery Square, continues with a survey of paintings by Thomas Bigatel.

Through his works, Thomas Bigatel explores the origins of life, the complexity of the human mind and body, our ocean’s vast amount of energy and movement, our infinite and mysterious universe of time and space, all interwoven within his experiences as a human being.

Origins, defines the beginning of a specific period of Thomas' artistic endeavors when his painting methods evolved and continues today with each new painting.

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JULY 27 - SEPTEMBER 7, 2024

Dark Mode. That ubiquitous viewing setting on our devices is not only a visual theme to reduce eye strain but is something of a daily ritual of gradual psychic decomposition. In this twilight state, cellular renewal occurs - we shed dead cells and generate new ones in an unseen yet constant coming and going of thought/matter within the body. Here, “dark” also suggests that which eludes direct observation - the work inspired by deep field images captured by the Hubble Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. Sanders' initial curiosity about humanity's presence in outer space has mutated over time into a contemplation of the ability to see into the endlessness of the cosmos: what does it mean to see so much?

These concerns spurred the evolution of an interlacing linear motif that appears throughout his work. In this series, the linework takes on a new dimension, rendered in black impasto paint atop the deep field imagery. The convergence of line and image prompts an optical phenomenon: as you shift your perspective, the line merges with the background to create a perceptual blind spot within the image. The result is a paradoxical experience of an image that conceals the visible and reveals the invisible.

The mutable nature of macro-reality finds its echo in the intimate still-life paintings of Ruysch and de Heem. Their floral arrangements, captured in various stages of growth and decay, serve as both memento mori and reminders of the continuous exchange of matter. In Dark Mode, Sanders presents loosely rendered still-lives, glazed with thin films of highly saturated pigment. In this context, linear forms snake in and out of view, gesturing toward the uncertainty and formlessness fundamental to change.

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JUNE 8 - JULY 20, 2024

Works in this exhibition explore our allegiances and how we express them. Familiar flags and emblems that visually signal our affiliations, beliefs, and values are steeped in patriotic or male-centric views that divide us by artificial borders and presume our rights to ownership of nature. This mentality also perpetuates the subjugation of women. From dowries and debts to deeds, we shed blood over seizure and control of the bodies of women and nature. For such a burden, both deserve the same agency and freedom we gain in their service.

These works propose a “matriotic” global view that defines home and our fellow “citizens” in the context of shared common wealth. This wealth – water, air, food, health, community – is contingent on our care and stewardship, not our abuse and exploitation. Stars and stripes are exchanged for a new aesthetic that puts women and nature at the forefront of our fidelity and urges that we reexamine to whom or what we pledge our allegiance.

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We are pleased to partner with Bakery Square as we curate a series of exhibitions in their public gallery, THE PORTAL.

Our debut exhibit features a selection of mixed-media works by Gavin Benjamin, whose themes are often focused on media, fashion, politics, pop culture, design, and how we live. This exhibit showcases a selection of works from a variety of his series. While some pieces have been exhibited, many have never been seen outside of his studio.

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APRIL 20 - JUNE 1, 2024

Throughout the ages visual art has been influenced by music, and vice versa. The group of artists in our Let Forever Be exhibit have found inspiration in song lyrics, musical performances (live and recorded), and even the packaging of bands/musicians – expressing many harmonies between art and music.

Featuring works by:

Justus Cotterill

Dylan Critchfield-Sales

Andrew Fish

Paul Mullins

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MARCH 2 - APRIL 14, 2024

For this body of work Linda Price-Sneddon has reached back to her roots to tap into what drew her to the landscape as muse.

We are shaped by the land where we are born and by the lands where we live our lives. The psycho-geological. The influence of rock, water and the land upon our psyche. We attach emotional and symbolic meaning to landscape of spectacular sunrise, brooding sky or majestic mountain.

We are instinctively hungry for connection, to find our place in the order of the natural world. To find balance and solace in empathy with all things. This is Linda's project.

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JANUARY 13 - FEBRUARY 25, 2024

Scott Hunter's Nonie Series has become a convergence of the autobiographical storylines of artist and muse. Just as the artist as a young man appears in a few faded snapshots of Nonie’s photo diaries, each painting invites the viewer to engage in a form of temporal travel and share in our collective memory of time and place.

A second look at these mundane but meaningful moments leads to thoughts of kinship and how its social roles, responsibilities and obligations can conflict with who we are inside – moving the artist to ask, "I wonder how I would know her differently if I knew her now?"

The light of the past is here, seen through several lenses, weaving through themes of aging, identity and tradition with a dose of humor. All while celebrating the simple pleasure of looking.

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NOVEMBER 4, 2023 - JANUARY 6, 2024

Inspired by places traveled, and by layers of others yet to be explored, Lotenero balances identity, place and memory through constructed relics from unrealized civilizations –– other ghosts linger from the past, while some visit from the future.

Lotenero conjures apparitions in found photos of turn-of-the-century New York, and in images he's taken in Rome, Pompeii, and Florence. Or, he might bury an entirely finished, sometimes colorful painting, under a new layer of white and line – bewitching the viewer to sense something underneath, adding hidden meaning and weight.

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SEPTEMBER 9 - OCTOBER 28, 2023

Artists, Evan Boggess and Sarah Jacobs conjure memories and question the meaning of life through their surreal paintings layered with objects of symbolism and personal experience.

The paintings in Evan Boggess’ Roil Ring series are compressed assemblages of imagery associated with specific personal experiences. He considers his painting surfaces to be collection sites for the troves of documentation he gathers about inexplicably strong memories. Candid snapshots, satellite images, graffiti, advertisements and signage, written documents, plants, wildlife, graphs, local lore, weather reports, doorbell cam stills, and trail camera photos are just some of the sources Boggess uses to expand the memories into hulking, cacophonic forms. The visual elements intersect, interrupt, support, and obliterate one another while remaining parts of the same writhing masses. By placing everything in circular, centrifuge-like compositions, the visual elements are forced to relate to one another in various contexts. The relatively slow, mindful act of painting allows Boggess to watch these unexpected connections develop among elements in real time. As he searches for the ideal forms and styles with which to describe his research, the details of his memories become simultaneously sharper and more nebulous.

Sarah Jacob’s Mystery Series, which consists of multimedia paintings, creates space for conversations around existential concerns. What are consciousness and the meaning of life, and what happens after we die? Many pieces incorporate symbols related to living and dying: in one scene, an emergency medical helicopter lands in the background; another depicts a house of cards; in a third it is unclear whether a chess piece will be taken out or survive another turn. These works also incorporate deep spaces, including outer space. The cosmos is the ultimate representation of existence. We are part of this space and world that we cannot fully define. The artworks are rendered with great care and detail to inspire viewers to feel wonder at being part of something so grand and unknowable. Jacobs’ artworks show the oneness of humans with the rest of our world at a time when that relationship is vulnerable, edging on irreconcilable.

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JULY 15 - SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

Artists Stephanie Armbruster and Kevin Mack document their personal explorations of self and the world around us – balancing figure and ground, blurring the lines between landscape and gestural abstraction.

In her new series, Armbruster delves into the realm of the self and the interior landscape of her own experience. Each work is the product of a period of profound introspection, touching upon universal themes of resilience and adaptation, isolation and connection. Departing from her traditional medium of encaustic, these expansive new works in stark black and white on paper intentionally shun color to emphasize form and contrast, conveying a sense of depth through interplay between light and dark.

Through layers of play and precision, Mack creates vibrant paintings to be seen as both portal and mirror. He dissects and rebuilds moments to uncover the intricacies which cement experience as memory. Whether chasing the sublime in studio or off the grid, loose planning and an openness to chaos are of the utmost importance.

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MAY 20 - JULY 9, 2023

In her newest series, Cara Livorio creates wild and immersive gardens, all of which contain the scattered remnants of human presence. A garden holds both life and death in its seasons of growth, decline, and rebirth, and as we meander through the ever changing landscape, it is a serene and even sublime place. Every journey through the garden brings new sights and surprises; it grows wildly, and there is the sense of the power and unbridled beauty of nature. Amidst this natural beauty and verdant growth, one can also find the human touch, the human spirit: statues, architectural ruins, and other signs of human genius which stand tall, although slowly succumbing to erosion and the eventual fate of stone and earthly elements. In a way, the statues symbolize our best attempts at translating and conveying human ideas and ideals into something concrete, literally made of stone.

Instead of viewing the human elements as an attempt of the human ego to dominate over nature, destroy, or control it, Cara sees a symbiotic coexistence where the stones and statues slowly surrender to their fate; from dust to dust. Humbly giving up control and surrendering to nature, or to one’s God, is not giving up. It is the greatest act of respect, faith and trust. Finding beauty in pain and brokenness, healing wounds, clearing the dead weeds and creating space for new flowers and seasons to grow.

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MARCH 25 - MAY 14, 2023

Chris McGinnis draws inspiration from America’s industrial story and notions of progress understood through the lens of technology, social economics, and cultural identity. His recent work balances playful and idealized approaches to realism against a backdrop of American landscape nationalism often exemplified in aspects of twentieth century heavy industry.

The title Radiant Organon, alludes to an absurd system of logic governing elements within each painting as well as the relationships between separate works. Raised in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Chris’ work often channels curious and romantic depictions of regional industry derived from an understanding of how industrialized society has influenced a sense of what it means to be American.

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EXTENDED THROUGH MARCH 19

JANUARY 7 - FEBRUARY 27, 2023

A new year is often a time of reflection and introspection. We start off 2023 with a group exhibit featuring works by Mary Dorfner Hay, Kathleen Mulcahy, Brian Peters, and Travis K. Schwab in a variety of mediums – glass, oil paint, ceramic, and graphite. Through their use of material, color and composition, the selected works are intended to create pause, and encourage thoughtful consideration and inspiration.

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OCTOBER 29 - DECEMBER 18, 2022

Rick Bach reacts to the pandemic and current world affairs through works on paper, metal and wood. His style ranges from architectural to figurative. Rick is motivated to entertain and provoke while pushing the boundaries between conventional and absurd, functional and useless.

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SEPTEMBER 3 - OCTOBER 23, 2022

Presenting new works from Patricia Bellan-Gillen where personal narrative mixes with fairytales. Historical events intertwine with the imagined and a veil of nostalgia blurs the border between fact and fiction. Sacred imagery moves about in the temporal lobe with iconic characters from children’s books. Recent news flashes picked from the internet join the sagas of black and white television. The artist's drawings use these bits and pieces of visual history…the stones and bones of memory…to suggest a narrative and to engage the viewer’s associative responses.

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JULY 9 - AUGUST 28, 2022

Presenting new mixed media/collage works from two iconic photographers, Gavin Benjamin and Hans Neleman – each artist exploring layers of time to better understand the past and present while forging the future.

Gavin Benjamin's mash-up of pop culture imagery blends fashion, music, media, and luxury – resulting in richly layered works, that simultaneously erode and sparkle (encrusted with Swarovski crystals) while commenting on race, appropriation, status, and achievement.

Hans Neleman creates lyrical dreamscapes where heads appear to emerge from their abstract backgrounds. Myths and modern tales merge. This enthralling amalgamation of both realist and abstract heads provides a space for stories about transformed identities that move to a surrealist beat mixed with sensual and even romantic harmonies.

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MAY 19 -21, 2022

ZYNKA Gallery presents pop-up retrospective exhibit celebrating over 40 years of Val M Cox’s “forms” series of paintings at the Brew House Association in the South Side. These multi-planar works are a synthesis of painting and sculpture in which the surfaces of paintings are contoured and shaped, sometimes composed of multiple panels to form a single canvas. Cox developed this work from his desire to find forms that participate in the space of their environment – they impinge on surrounding space and encourage the viewer to move about the works to experience them.

MAY 7 - JULY 3, 2022

Natalie Westbrook’s FACES greet you head-on. They come for you, leering, grinning, mouths a garish lipsticked rictus of joy, embedded flat against the canvas, their features seeming to emerge from the psychological fabric of the painting itself. Westbrook’s faces evoke the question: What if the faces we imagine we see—the ghosts and ghouls and shadows that cavort through our dreams, the flat, silvered-mirror side of our reflections—became animate, aggressive, wild and alive?

Westbrook’s faces, their features stretched and warped into devilish and angelic shapes, haunt the viewer. One imagines them in a darkened room, churning behind the canvas, waiting to be encountered. The paintings, just like the distant Face on Mars, require the presence of the viewer to become known—to become faces. Their characters are animated by our preexisting notions and familiar imagery as much as they are by Westbrook’s hand—or is it that Westbrook’s brush tugs at our own unruly, joyous desires, willing what is buried to come to the surface? Each interaction is an exchange. The faces of FACES awaken within us, stare us down, turn us inside-out. —Larissa Pham

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MARCH 5 - MAY 1, 2022

This group exhibition features artists who work with wood either as a material or as a subject – discover their stories in the grain.

Christopher Boring – “Wood is a very nostalgic and connecting theme for me. Growing up I spent a ton of time in the woods. I explored, collected walking sticks, built forts, and helped my grandparents with chopping and stacking wood. Having these experiences drew my attention to how wood records life and events specifically though their rings. I started regularly painting wood after the death of my great grandmother and pappy. I find painting it reconnects me to memories of the family I have lost.”

Nate Lucas – “My current body of work draws inspiration from the often, overlooked beauty of patterns in both natural and manmade experience. I desire to create objects that give the viewer some sense of the awe found in viewing a brilliantly colored patch or lichen, stones on a riverbank, or a crack in a sidewalk.”

Carin Mincemoyer – “This series comes from the primordial attraction we have to water in the landscape, the meditative calm we can get from gazing at the constantly changing but never repeating ripples and waves of the water's surface. It is based on photos I’ve taken of the water in our region's rivers and lakes, taken from points where the public accesses the water. While each of these public access points is different – different neighborhoods and people, different levels of amenities available, etc. – the always similar but never repeating shapes of the water's surface are a constant and shared experience.”

Jonathan Shapiro – “The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire from the late 18th through early 20th centuries. It was here that the vast majority of Russia’s Jewish population was relegated to live and it was here that, from 1918 to 1921, savage pogroms resulted in the death of more than 100,000 Jews. These pieces are inspired by the stories of my grandparents, who were victims of these attacks. They tell a story of determination and survival, and of escape to a new life in New York City.”

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JANUARY 6 - FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Karl Mullen has developed his own non-traditional approach to art making and materials. Painting largely with his hands, Karl creates distinctive, poetic figures that float on fields of color. The imagery in his paintings is born out of Irish mythology, family and dreams.

We had the good fortune of Karl playing some of his music surrounded by his art during our Artist Reception. Click to enjoy!

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NOVEMBER 6 - DECEMBER 19, 2021

We're excited to be showcasing this group of artists whose work focuses on light and line to interpret the visible, or reveal the invisible. The exhibit includes a variety of mediums – photography, graphite, oil paint, and watercolor.

Featured Artists: Rob Long, Mary Dorfner Hay, John Burt Sanders, Terri Wolfe Izzo, and Jason LaCroix

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FALL/WINTER ‘21/’22

Dylan’s paintings translate the nuance of reality into simple forms of light and shadow, and warm and cool color relationships. In his landscapes, Dylan conveys a clear and genuine atmosphere that gives the viewer a sense of having been there themselves.

In the Summer of 2019 Dylan spent three months as an Artist in Residence with the Jerusalem Studio School in Civita Castellana, Italy; a place where Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) and his contemporaries spent months at a time painting the environs.

For many years, Dylan has studied and drawn inspiration from the work of Corot, particularly the oil sketches from Italy. The work on display represents Dylan’s travels throughout Italy, engaging with the views Corot painted and researching modernist still life and landscape painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) and medieval renaissance fresco painters. This body of work is a synthesis of these influences yet a distinctive expression of Dylan’s experience of the light and landscape of Italy.

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SEPTEMBER 10 - OCTOBER 17, 2021

As the pandemic has challenged us and disrupted our lives, we've all sought some sense normalcy, or a place of peace - a sanctuary. For many of our artists, their studio is that place. A place to retreat from the chaos and unknown, a place to focus on themselves and their work.

We're pleased to present a new series of work from Atticus Adams and Mia Tarducci - exciting work that has been born from the sanctuary of their studios during the pandemic.

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JULY 24 - SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

People, places and things - this is what surrounds us, what we see as we live our lives. Our ability to capture images with our handheld devices has become a standard practice. We carry these images as memories, on our phones, tablets and computers. We share them through text messages, on social media.

As an artist Shawn Watrous is always looking, always taking pictures and making drawings. He captures his life, and the world around him as he sees and experiences it. The paintings in this exhibition are an expression of that experience, of looking, of seeing, of remembering.

The kind of experiences we all have, in a standard day, a standard week. The standards we keep that define the objects, places and people in our lives.

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SUMMER/FALL, 2021

ZYNKA Gallery is proud to present Stephanie Armbruster's MERIDIAN series of paintings at Scratch & Co.

Stephanie's luminous paintings seek balance between figure and ground, blurring the lines between landscape and gestural abstraction. Working primarily in encaustic, Stephanie creates her paintings from dozens of layers of translucent wax, fused with a flame torch, and smoothed by hand.

Meridians are pathways of vital energy, either passing through the earth's surface on continuous latitudes, or through the body.

Each of these paintings are inspired by travel and specific locations. Acting as waypoints in the path of memory, they recall the story and sentiment of each encounter.

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JUNE 5 - JULY 18, 2021

Herein lies an assembly of gatherings, a constructed pastiche of style conflicts, pop transcendence, and a sense of humor in the living room.

Curtains are open to reveal the lanai or drawn shut to conceal a shady deal, and the four horsemen are on their way to a garden party.

Allowing equal voice to surrealist chance, synchronicity in formalist painting, and the mythos of narrative as rationale to assemble, cowboys are in the kitchen and the gods are at home decorating.

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APRIL 17 - MAY 30, 2021

This hardworking exhibit features new work from sculptor, Ed Parrish Jr., and painter, Jack Taylor as they explore labor and craft in varied forms – honoring the tools, products/by products, and kitsch created by working hands.

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FEBRUARY 27 - APRIL 10, 2021

Artists Terry Boyd and Stephen Tuomala take their own unique approach as they re-contextualize image stills from popular media sources such as late night Cable TV and the Internet. Through the use of color, pattern, texture and materials, they transform what some might consider the ugly images of sex into beautiful works that explore and challenge ideas of sexuality.

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JANUARY 22 - MARCH 1, 2021

This past year has been tremendously challenging for so many, and although it is a new year, the effects of this past year are still unfolding and will always be a part of our collective story. But, with time and reflection, a crisis can be an opportunity for positive transformation.   This holds true not only on an individual level, but on a community level which is why ZYNKA Gallery has collaborated with Crazy Mocha Coffee Company to transform their café into a carefully curated exhibition.

The timely works on display speak to the stresses and anxieties of the last year, and look optimistically forward. Through hindsight comes the opportunity for positive transformation and although positive transformation may take time, we are grateful that we can now say 20/20 is hindsight.

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Contact the gallery for availability and purchase.

JANUARY 9 - FEBRUARY 20, 2021

“Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The parallels between the oppression of women and the domination of nature are glaring, once our eyes are roused to see it. Both are religiously sanctioned as property, legislated against, denigrated into submission, cast as villains, their beauty monetized, and their fertility systematically policed.

“My eyes only fully opened to these comparisons at the confluence of two life-altering experiences - the start of multiple collaborations with environmental scientists, and becoming a mother. With each additional set of scientific data, my despair about the fragility of life, a looming uninhabitable planet for the beings I willingly brought into this world, and my own culpability in a mass extinction event was further cemented. It also ignited a hot blaze of maternal instinct to safeguard my children and the environment that cradles them.” – Ashley Cecil

The artist visually retells striking historical metaphors linking the two - those of nature representing feminine power and of female characters representing Mother Nature. The repeating patterns of cultural and religious symbols of fertility, layered with female figures, also pry into the devastating consumption of our booming human population and how it’s shaped our modern Eden.

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NOVEMBER 14 - DECEMBER 31, 2020

This exhibition features new paintings by Judy Barie. She creates multiple layers on birch panels; mixing, pouring and combining oil and latex paint. The result is a balance of unforeseen happy accidents and loose brushwork. The juxtaposition of these many layers combined with tight hand painted patterns, create a dichotomy intended to intrigue the viewer. Color is paramount in the work, while highlighting her pure love of paint

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NOVEMBER 3 - DECEMBER 7, 2020

This exhibition features new works from painter, Linda Price-Sneddon, and ceramist/sculptor, Luke Desmone. Their energy-filled work fills our hearts as it explores Form/Formlessness, Time/Timelessness, and Stasis/Flux and the world that exists beyond our immediate perceptions and understanding of ourselves as individuals.

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AUGUST 15 - SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

This exhibition unities two artists whose work focuses on the darker side of life, death. The Memento Mori (remember death) concept has been explored by artists for centuries. Symbols commonly found in these types of works include skulls, fruit (often rotting), flowers, hour glasses/clocks, and extinguished candles - reminders that our time is fleeting and that life is short.

Mary Mazziotti's hand-embroidered work depicting "Wicked Children," presents many ways in which boys and girls could meet an untimely end. The text in this series comes from “The Book of Accidents," a 19th century book of admonitions to children. The illustrated monsters are built from our collective nightmares. "So behave, ya little basterds!" - Mary Mazziotti

Zach Brown's larger than life (or death)-sized oil paintings unite us with the one companion who is always with us through life - lovingly, mockingly, most seriously, and most unseriously. "May we die embracing this aspect of life that gives it meaning." - Zach Brown

As we all have been challenged with new ways of living during this time of COVID-19, this collection of work is a reminder to live our lives to the fullest - Memento Vivere!

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JUNE 27 - AUGUST 8, 2020

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life, and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth — it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall and clears it for a different celebration - From Rilke’s Book of Hours

During the process of converting a church into a home and studio, everything familiar in Brenda Stumpf’s life began to fall apart. She had moved across the country and couldn’t find a sense of place, her grandmother passed away, and she felt the inevitable disintegration of a long-term relationship. Creating this body of work allowed her to commune with and transmute the pain, loss, and uncertainty into individual monuments to solitude and deep reflection.

For Stumpf, there was a monastic quality to hand-tearing a variety of papers into small bits and tiling the surfaces of some of the works in a mosaic-like fashion. She felt that it was extremely important to incorporate specific salvaged items and found documents from the church building into the paintings and sculptures. “As in much of my work,” explains Stumpf, “the humble materials I used in these pieces were handled, and ultimately imbued, with an elevated sense of meaning.” Stumpf has brought together and transformed these items into artifacts— memorials that now serve as a material record of the weight of the time and emotional context in which each was made.

This body of work has taken on new depth and dimension amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This shared human experience bears some of the hallmarks of mystical transformation. “It is a time of being deconstructed, rearranged, and learning what is of greatest value,” says Stumpf, “and it offers a profound inner opportunity to experience the process of sacred alchemy.

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APRIL 19 - JUNE 14, 2020

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic ZYNKA Gallery was forced to close in order to help slow the spread of the virus. As a result Paul Mullins’ EVERYBODY IS HERE exhibition was only open to public viewing for a week and didn’t get its proper run.

Realizing that Everybody ISN’T Here, sold works were removed from the walls and were delivered to collectors – leaving an even greater void in the gallery where those works had previously hung.

Rethinking this exhibition, Paul painted an additional set of works that compliment this current series. This extended play of paintings are of album covers from Paul’s personal collection – ones he has been listening to while in isolation under quarantine. While they express a similar sentiment as the Star Wars backing cards and dog drawings, perhaps they take on a deeper meaning as they mark this unique time – creating a new nostalgia for the future.

Enjoy this REMIXED Catalog which include these new works along with other available works from this exhibition. Additionally, Paul has curated soundtrack of songs from these albums - Playable on Spotify Paul Mullins - Remixed Playlist

1. Changeling – (DJ Shadow - Endtroducing)

2. The Sounds of Science – (Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique)

3. Sign ‘O’ the Times – (Prince - Sign ‘O’ the Times)

4. Cold Gin – (KISS - Alive!)

5. Boo Boos Birthday – (Thelonious Monk - Underground)

6. Eggs & Sausage – (Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner)

7. Forever in My Life – (Prince - Sign ‘O’ the Times)

8. 5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO – (The Coup - Party Music)

9. The Number Song – (DJ Shadow - Endtroducing)

10. Wear Clean Drawers – (The Coup - Party Music)

11. E-Coli – (Throbbing Gristle - D.o.A. The Third and Final Report of)

12. We Float – (PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea)

MARCH 7 - APRIL 18, 2020

Everybody Is Here is an exhibition of small works evidencing the artist’s insistent attraction to sentiment, and interest in empathy and our commonalities. The two strains of work presented here - drawings of dogs and paintings of toy packaging - offer images that we recognize and respond to, whether we are holding any art credentials or not.

“The small paintings duplicate a stash my mother preserved, of action figure backing cards from the most omnipresent film. All of us, we had these things. I consider our shared memories, and examine the beautiful record: the removal of the plastic from the cardboard, the cutting of the proof-of-purchases, the price sticker from long-vanished discount store chains. The drawings of sad dogs depict them in the immediately relatable manner. They have notions the same as ours, it’s an old tactic that will never die. They reflect the wounding of the spirit that any reasonable, sensitive person has been enduring. These works are an installment in a longtime process of questioning where the thresholds are regarding kitsch, and where the margins might be, when art wants to appeal to the many. These works are meant to wonder, just as one of these sorrowful doggies might: how well can things meet the qualifications of art, while still talking about what maybe all of us go through?” - Paul Mullins

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JANUARY 9 - FEBRUARY 29, 2020

VINYL is an exhibition of new works that has Michael Lotenero revisiting a previously explored material - vinyl. Most of the works are reverse-painted on clear vinyl (stretched over a frame) which provides a slick surface to his soulful and bold expressions - others are reverse-painted on plexiglass, with a handful painted directly on discarded vinyl records, which round out the VINYL theme.

The exhibition features an array of work at varying sizes - small to epically large - pure abstractions and others which include Michael’s signature figures and iconic heads.

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NOVEMBER 16 - DECEMBER 29, 2019

This debut exhibition for ZYNKA Gallery is a survey of art, happening NOW, in Pittsburgh, featuring 17 of some of the city’s most exciting artists. It is presented in collaboration with The Andy Warhol Museum, and is In celebration of the museum’s 25th Anniversary year!

The title, “Current,” has multiple meanings. Being on a river town in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Sharpsburg, it certainly relates to being near or on the water. The electrified nature of presenting something new and exciting also speaks to an electrical current. And, most specifically, current being ‘of the now’ is the most important thing.

Featured artists: Atticus Adams Judy Barie Gavin Benjamin Terry Boyd Isabelle Brourman Jamie Earnest Vanessa German Scott Hunter Michael Lotenero Joaquin Navarro Travis K. Schwab Jonathan Shapiro Brenda Stumpf Su Su, Mia Tarducci Stephen Tuomala Michael Walsh

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MAY 9 - JUNE 2, 2019 • ARTISTS IMAGE RESOURCE (AIR)

Flowers are the embodiment of beauty in so many forms, perfect artistic creations with a temporal existence. Their allure has never ceased to enchant us, yet how does one approach a subject matter that is already so exquisite in design? The challenge lies in reinventing a time-tested favorite, the floral “still life,” which is pleasing yet generally static and fails to do justice to the very essence of flowers and their nature.

Cara has created an expression of florals that is vibrant, bold and alive. The goal of this series was to explore floral compositions in a way that highlights their textures, forms and colors with a raw expression of the energy, dynamism, and the life that they possess. The artist’s vigorous, decisive brushstrokes and her intricate compositions elicit a sense of motion and whimsy while her sophisticated color schemes evoke emotion and intrigue. Cara constructs the floral forms with thick slabs of paint, but ultimately, she allows the forms to fracture and unravel almost as if the realism dissolves into an expressive floral explosion.

The exhibition includes 47 unique works.

OCTOBER 6 - NOVEMBER 2, 2018 • THE BREWHOUSE

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t draw. It is just something I did and continue to do daily. Whether it is a painting or sculpture everything starts with drawing. I work every day to create as much as I can.”

– Rick Bach

Rick Bach returns to the Brew House in Pittsburgh’s South Side for a solo exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculptures. The artist said, “I am honored to return to the Brew House and share this new body of work. I first opened a studio there in 1995.”

The work is an extension of his acclaimed exhibition entitled The Trojan Horsefarm at Gallery Studio A in Washington, DC, where the artist has lived since 2007. In this work, Rick revisits his childhood muse – the horse.

DECEMBER 6-10, 2017 • AQUA HOTEL MIAMI

Jeffrey Jarzynka presents the The Mine Factory by showcasing work from artists Ed Parrish Jr., Carlos Rodriguez aka Mare 139, Mia Tarducci, and Michael Walsh.

The Mine Factory was founded in 2013 to provide catalytic support for the emerging artist community in Pittsburgh, PA. In its short run, it has become a vital part of the regional art scene – sponsoring and hosting over 30 exhibitions in conjunction with area artist associations, non-profit cultural groups, and individual curators such as myself.

Today, The Mine Factory remains true to its mission by promoting Pittsburgh Arts to outside communities. Unlike a brick and mortar gallery, The Mine Factory believes in exploring more non-traditional ways in which to aid in the continued growth of Pittsburgh's artistic landscape.

AUGUST 18 - SEPTEMBER 17, 2017 • AIR (Artists Image Resource)

From a small stack of faded, poorly developed Kodak prints, a record of senior citizen bus tours, family vacations, weddings and holidays takes shape and the singular yet familiar life of Nonie shines.

With precious few frames on each roll of film, every shot was worth taking and each print saved no matter the overexposure, poor composition or bad lighting.

Worked up into oil paintings with attention to the shapes in the shadows and the story in the reflections, these images begin to weave a narrative that lands squarely within our collective memory. 

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MARCH 24th - APRIL 9th, 2017 • THE MINE FACTORY

This epic exhibition by Brenda Stumpf features multiple series of elaborate paintings, sculptures, and drawings which can be characterized by a Baroque sensibility intertwined with evocative subject matter. Stumpf's works are composed of nontraditional materials that are opulently tactile, and occupy a space of both virility and delicateness creating drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur. 

Many of the subjects Stumpf explores are showcased including Pandora, the Black Madonna, Seshat, victims of Jack the Ripper, the Inquisition, alchemy, the music of Arvo Pärt, the poetry of Pablo Neruda, and childhood enchantment.

FEBRUARY 16 - MAY 10, 2017 • C&G GALLERY

Standing still in front of a canvas is not stillness. Fragmentations in perceptions and values in the artist, shifts in faith, false nostalgia, love, entrenched superstition, detachment: these among others create a parallax effect that alters the course of a body of work. This show highlights that point of shift in an artist.

Often, little noticed changes in the endings and new beginnings within the circular rotation of life result in defining one’s reality. These changes determine what we are bound to: our paths of interconnection. In this collection we see the result of Giuseppe’s detachment from certain interdependencies, and reattachment to new ones. Work enlivened by his love of liberty, his need of safety, and his desire of free enterprise. The blending of a long-term exploration of abstraction to a burgeoning form of representation is the instinctive result.

JANUARY 11 - MAY 10, 2017 • THE RENAISSANCE HOTEL

Mia Tarducci has found favor in Pittsburgh and beyond as her artwork has been exhibited in contemporary museums and galleries across the U.S. Recent notable achievements include being named the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Emerging Artist of the Year in 2014, and winning the Leon A. Arkus Award as part of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh’s 2016 Annual Exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

In “Chapters” Tarducci continues to write and rewrite her own expressive art biography as she explores surface, color, and technique. Many of her canvases are layered thick with paint, like words on a page, enticing the viewer to explore beyond the surface and create their own narrative, thus becoming part of the work itself. In other works she turns her attention to the act of mark making, either in a distilled form of simple marks, or employing her painterly style. The collective body produces a consonant exhibition, that like a favorite book, will have viewers turning to again and again.

JANUARY 11 - FEBRUARY 6, 2017 • C&G GALLERY

This curated exhibition features divergent yet complimentary works from two distinct artists as they explore their personal stories, race, sexuality, religion, and politics.

SEPTEMBER 10 -30, 2016 • THE MINE FACTORY

DISLOCATION is a series of cut-paper collages that explore the idea of disrupting a set order or system. Inspired by a relocation, the work reflects a shift in environment and in identity. While the process of assimilation into a new surrounding is commonplace, it is equally a profound experience worthy of examination. Within this series, the imagery used is both graphic and symbolic. Each piece creates a sense of change within a constant—something logical becomes illogical—something organized becomes organic

JUNE 16 - AUGUST 18, 2016 • THE RENAISSANCE PITTSBURGH HOTEL

This curated exhibition kicks off a celebration of the Global Day of Discovery. Titled "Discover Pittsburgh's Renaissance," the exhibition is prominently displayed throughout the hotel's grand lobby - creating an historic backdrop for the contemporary artwork. The exhibit includes an impressive selection work of from notable emerging and established artists Stephanie Armbruster, Michael Lotenero, Val Cox, Scott Hunter, Giuseppe Ragozzino, and Sarika Goulatia.

JUNE 3 -18, 2016 • THE MINE FACTORY

One Hand Clapping was a process and series of e-mail “postcards” that began in April of 2005 and lasted a decade. The intention of the project was simple: The sharing of images as a sort of greeting, offered as a respite from other concerns, a momentary meditation before deletion. The medium of e-mail underscored the ephemeral nature of the photographic content, itself evanescent.

The project was about time in a broader sense, too — its passing, its meaning, its nature. 

Inevitably, One Hand Clapping was about also digital photography — the technology, the evolution, the increasing ease of dissemination.

While some of the images from this internet-based media project have been shown publicly over the years, this exhibition was the first time that all (almost 1,000 works - including videos) were shown together.

April 8 -23, 2016 • The Mine Factory

This exhibition included 26 works where Best explores what feels like an already infinite and somewhat terrifying subject, the cosmos, as he collides it with the world of an abstract painting. By doing this, it allows for the two realities to find balance and become a new, living environment.

Jesse Best is a contemporary American painter living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His style reflects a material driven process with a focus on acrylic, spray paint, wood and resin. His blend of painterly brush work combined with a graphic sensibility has granted him a unique style and voice.

As an artist, he continues to seek out techniques and processes that reveal endless possibilities, with the hope is that the participant can view his work and question what they believe is reality, and eventually find comfort in that fact that we will never figure it all out.

In partnership with the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, The Pittsburgh Technology Council and the CREATE Festival recently announced Best as the 2016 CREATE Featured Artist of the Year. As such his work will be featured at the Three River’s Arts Festival, and gifted to the collections of Pittsburgh’s ten Creators-of-the-Year. Additionally, Best has been commissioned to create a public art installation for the Festival.

MARCH 5-19, 2016 • ARTISTS IMAGE RESOURCE (AIR)

This body of work is inspired by the timeless nature of vintage fashion, and the anticipation of the imminent explosion of Spring.

Gavin Benjamin is a multi-faceted artist with a background in commercial photography, painting, printmaking, and interior and product design. His process draws from these various disciplines as he digitally combines his own photography with found images and hand embellishes the printed piece with collage, paint, varnish, and other materials such as Swarovski crystals - the result of which he refers to as “couture art.”

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DECEMBER 4-19, 2015 • THE MINE FACTORY

These recent works are a personal exploration of the landscape and our structures upon and within them as a temporal experience, or an almost febrile hallucination. Like drifting through our own lives as visitors, we long for an understanding of where we are and where we have been. Using marks and lines, shape and color, with texture to recreate a memory of a place that may be real or imagined, Michael attempts to capture the sensory memories and feelings of an experience within a specific place. Working on multiple pieces at a time, slowly adding and subtracting, marks and layers, until the image becomes it’s own truth and it’s own memory.

MAY 7-22, 2015 • UNION HALL

"The constant found in Giuseppe's diverse body of work is his defiance and his passion."   - Jeffrey Jarzynka

 Giuseppe works mostly with paint and mostly on canvas. However, his interests and resources guide him through his reasoning process to represent conflicts, critiques and joys with various materials.

An independent fellow of his own school of existence, Giuseppe’s work can be found in private collections, public exhibits, and within local community spaces. The limits between the artist and the social environment have defined his work.

A common theme is one of disobedience juxtaposed with a forced recognition and reverence for relationships. There is often a purposeful shift to create or relieve tension. A work comprising of facts, pigment, systems, and evolution creates a fictive reality, which for the viewer, is the piece.