zoe finkelman is an artist.

‍ ‍I have learned that the body, specifically the feminine body, is a storytelling device, a record to be read.

In my practice I combine figuration and abstraction as I attempt to map my mind with the visual language of the body. I spent a large part of my adolescence institutionalized in the troubled teen industry, an experience I endured by creating my own escapist fantasies. Trauma induced amnesia left me with few concrete memories of this time. With these gaps in my memory, I look to my own body as a witness to my past. I may not remember my teenage years but my body does, recording them with scars, freckles, and burns.

I have been hyperaware of the female body for as long as I can remember. From eating disorders in my youth to my first strip search at the age of thirteen. I have learned that the body, specifically the feminine body, is a storytelling device, a record to be read. I chronicle my fragmented memory and murky feelings as fantastical legend.  My work adopts an autobiographical yet universal nature, that of a personal odyssey.I work with the female figure, rendered through expressive brushstrokes, darks colors, and mythic iconography. Although my work is foundationally representational, my rendering and treatment of the body is abstracted. My brushstrokes are expressive and textural and transform the familiar texture of skin into something unfamiliar. Proportions of the body are manipulated as I break the boundaries of human anatomy: Bones become sharper, skin is more textured and colorful, fat is accentuated and hangs warily off the frame.

My dramatic compositions and precise poses of figures are referential to both the Greek Classical and Renaissance traditions (contrapasto, pudica, serpentine, etc) . My work holds references to biblical and historical art yet uses striking synthetic palettes. This tension between classical narrative and absurdist conceptual mirrors the tension in my own mind. My figures aren’t always alone as I take inspiration from mythological and folk art and create unique symbols, creatures, and environments to accompany them. Anthropomorphized animals often reside as secondary figures in my works, furthering my artistic syntax and the fantastical atmosphere. My repeated usage of the feminine form, classical compositions, and ominous symbols evokes a sense of an obscured narrative in my work. A self portrait that is also a storybook with pages ripped out and gaps left for the audience and myself to project onto and fill. 

Zoe is currently studying at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where she is in her junior year receiving a BFA in Painting and a minor in Writing and Literature. She has previously studied at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and completed programs at the School of the Art Institute Chicago and the Savannah College of Art and Design.

You can find Zoe’s work on Instagram @fungalfat or go to her website www.zoefinkelman.com.