Artist Statement
For years, Walter Zekanoski has collected into notebooks texts that become references for his artwork. An avid reader, he is attentive to various writing (prose, poetry, lyrics) that is evocative of the inner world we all possess — the one we rarely share with others. The texts address an introspection we all engage in when we are reminiscing, judging, calculating, or decoding — in other words those times when we are trying to make sense of the world we live in.
Two examples are: “my youth has gone subterranean as a dream” (from a memoir by Joyce Carol Oates), and “It’s easier to look back on a pain than to see one coming." (from the Emily Dickinson poem “While I Was Fearing It, It Came”). Each of these quotes address a unique aspect of memory. They give an interpretation to something (a memory) that is often vague, or unstable, or in constant modification. To reminisce about one’s youth, or to remember a painful experience, can conjure thoughts we don’t usually share with others. To think about these things is to internalize and assess them in a way that is different from the original experience. These thoughts shape who we are; they are an essential, necessary, and indispensable aspect of how we navigate our lives. Like these texts, Zekanoski’s paintings attempt to open a portal into the viewer’s examination of their own delicate and private musings.