An exhibition of small paintings by artist Sara M. Zak opens in (716)GAL-LERY on Saturday January 30, 2016 and runs through the end of April.
The initial inspiration for this series of small oil paintings by Sara M. Zak was the gallery where they would be exhibited: (716)GAL-LERY, Buffalo’s smallest gallery, a phone booth inside The Hydraulic Hearth Restaurant & Brewery. The paintings tell the story of calling up one’s artistic heroes on foreign pay phones, having said heroes answer via cool outdated communication devices, and then getting together for a drink and/or dessert to converse about all the nuances of painting.
“It’s ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding” Titled after Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, this exhibit is a release into the whimsical and the nonsensical — a very welcome place where the joys of color, composition, humor and growth dwell. The exhibit will also contain audio conversations with a few artistic legends and perhaps even some classic phone booth movie scenes.
The size constraint of the phone booth is becoming a source for inspiration for exhibiting artists. The confined space is releasing big ideas since becoming a Gallery in late 2014. Sara embraced both the original purpose of the phone booth and the size to create a new body of work that is sure to bring a smile to anyone who remembers old school means of communicating such as telephones and typewriters, and questions from a younger generation not familiar with these devices for conversation and the written word.
Sara M. Zak is a Western New York visual artist and instructor specializing in oil painting. She recently completed a solo exhibition at Canisius College and is looking forward to her TopSpin solo exhibition at The Castellani Art Museum in September 2016. Her work is in private collections across the country and was recently acquired by the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. She was honored to be named a finalist for the Sustainable Arts Foundation Award in San Francisco. Sara founded the grassroots artists’ initiative Painting for Preservation in 2011. She teaches at Villa Maria College, conducts regular painting workshops and demonstrations, is a NYFA Mark alumnus, and holds degrees in Painting, Art History and Education from SUNY College at Buffalo.
The exhibition opens in conjunction with the 2nd annual Larkinville Ice Festival on January 30th from 10:30am – 3 pm, featuring all-age neighborhood events at The Hydraulic Hearth, Larkin Square, Flying Bison and other Larkinville venues.
For more information about the Larkinville Ice Festival, visit: https://larkinsquare.com/2nd-annual-larkinville-ice-festival/