EXHIBITED:
Peter Zokosky Oil Painting One Man Show , Hsiung Shih
Gallery, Taipei, July 9 - 24, 1988
This painting is to be sold with a certificate of authenticity
issued by Hsiung Shih Gallery, Taipei and signed by the artist.

VOLCANO / TWO HARES
PETER ZOKOSKY

Peter Zokosky was born in California in 1957 and is one of the best-known artists since the post-modernist period of the 1980s. After graduating from University of California in 1981, Zokosky continued his study at the Otis Art Institute and received his master's degree. He received Visual Arts Grant in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987, and his first international solo e x h i b i t i o n was held a t Hsiung Shih Gallery in the following year in Taiwan. Traces of great masters and elements of classical paintings can be found in many of Zokosky's early works, yet Zokosy is able to internalize and develop as his unique way of painting in a poetic fashion. One can feel both the grandiose and effervescence of nature from his paintings. According to an influential contemporary art critic Victoria Yung-Chih Lu once commented in Hsiung Shih Monthly journal, "one may feel a little misplaced in time and space when viewing Zokosky's work… Most of his works are portrayed in poetic fashion and in relations to the nature… yet it could be a natural phenomenon or as the illusions in dreams at the same time." In "Volcano" for instance, viewers can't help but to notice that the dark clouds behind the little boy are about to dominate the sky, and that the boiling lava is engulfing the town that is already nearly destroyed. In the lower right corner, one can note that the boy in white is in stark contrast with grey volcano ash. Is the balance between mankind and nature falling apart? Works of Zokosky remind viewers to think carefully and re-evaluate our actions.

Zokosky's excellent painting techniques partly originated from the curious mind of his, as seen at the age of six, he dissected a bird just to learn about its anatomy. The artist always seeks beneath the surface, in which he held a keen interest in the matter of science, anatomy and the circle of life nature. Looking at "Two Hares", it seemed indifference to other realistic animal paintings, yet it is said that Zokosky painted the hare one in black and another in white as his way of metaphorically implying the composition of the races in the States, as well as the implication of conflicts between the two. "Using metaphor is just another way to perceive the world. The observed and its meaning are still the same thing," Zokosky stated. One often sees such themes as the real versus the illusionary, as well as the conflicts and interactions between human beings and nature.