Artist Antony Zito goes big in East Vil. show
BY BOB KRASNER
There are times when input from a
gallery director can be a catalyst
for change. For Antony Zito, the
“magic words” from Howl Gallery’s Ted
Riederer regarding his latest show were
the instructions, “all new work, and go
big!”
“I’ve always mainly done straight portraits,”
explains Zito, an Acker Award
winning artist. “I love what you get from a
face. I’m not usually a conceptual artist.”
Zito’s past portraits, notable for having
been painted on discarded mirrors,
cabinet doors, thrift store paintings, coffee
cups and just “anything that can hold
paint,” kept him busy for many years in his
Lower East Side studio.
Having spent 25 years in NYC, he has
recently gone back to live in the home
where he grew up in Connecticut, following
the death of his father. He took with
him the contents of many storage spaces,
having scavenged the streets for years for
paintable debris.
The work in his solo show, called “My
Father Was a Satyr,” is not just physically
big, it is thematically so as well. Take “The
Threshold”, a piece that stretches about 19
feet wide by eight feet high. Painted on a
conglomeration of old doors, found paintings,
barn wood, a peg board and a piece
of a tin ceiling, the central fi gure is a satyr
that takes the protagonist (possibly you)
Antony Zito in the hidden door of his piece “The Threshold.”
away from the innocence of childhood
into a world of “adventure, possibility,
danger and hope.”
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Zito muses on the mythical image in
the center of the piece, saying, “My father
was an amazing artist and inspiration who
frequently painted himself as a satyr. But
it was the Roman version – more mischievous,
less sleazy.”
Hidden in the piece are three doors.
One door holds a drawing of his father’s,
one has “the feminine presence” and one
contains a quote from philosopher Alan
Watts: “We do not ‘come into’ this world;
we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.”
Animals represent various themes –
the snake is metamorphosis, a deer is a
catalyst, an 11-foot-high Griffi n is “The
Elixir of Life,” but humans are not entirely
absent. In addition to a self-portrait
titled “Mid-Century Satyr,” the artist’s late
friend, Mars Bar owner Hank Penza, is
depicted as a shaman.
“Mars Bar – the last hardcore punk bar
– was my home for a long time. I spent
way too much time there,” muses Zito.
Living once again in Connecticut, he
“misses the intensity of downtown NYC”
and mentions that he was “angry for a
while, as I watched the culture that I was
part of disintegrate.”
But nowadays, he is happy to be in a
“magical, incredible home, every inch
handcrafted by my father. He was a stone
carver and a painter who had never built
a house before.” Zito goes on to reminisce
about his upbringing, recalling that, “we
lived out of the garden. My parents were
hippies without the hippieness.”
More info here: zitogallery.com
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