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Side-By-Each:
Karle Norman & Zeyneb Johnson
Opening Reception: September 30, 2022
6-8pm
Statement from Curator, Kyle Butler:
The creative practices of Zeyneb Johnson and Karle Norman have a similar flexibility of subject matter as well as a similar pervasive weight stemming from a core body of work that builds off of the trials and triumphs of their respective pasts. In some bodies of work, familiar and comfortable subjects are stylized, such as in the line-and-wash aerial landscapes of Norman or Johnson’s serene colored pencil renderings of individual plants and animals. In other work, each returns to the subject of the past and their trajectory to the present. Zeyneb Johnson developed a body of images and writing that illustrated her fraught transition from Ethiopia to the US, work that culminated in the memoir Zeyneb’s Story. Karle Norman has long been creating images and objects that reflect on being exiled from a devout family due to differences in beliefs. The weight of this work doesn’t necessarily need to be affiliated with the other work. There’s an independent joy to the way in which those subjects are imagined. But at times that story adds an angle, as with Karle Norman’s Same Inside series that highlights the internal similarities between people despite their external differences. Or when Zeyneb Johnson draws an Ethiopian hut, it is both an earnest landscape study and a strong prompt of the past. This exhibition focuses primarily on the work that is a bit outside of their respective story lines; a mixture of landscapes, object studies, and a wealth of ingenuity with how the images are built.
Press Release:
Zeyneb Johnson and Karle Norman Featured by Starlight Studio & Art Gallery for Side-By-Each Series
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Starlight Studio & Art Gallery, a division of Beyond Support Network, is proud to announce that the next opening in its Side-By-Each series is slated for Friday, Sept. 30, featuring Starlight’s own Zeyneb Johnson alongside local artist Karle Norman.
The exhibition reception will run from 6-8 p.m. on Sept. 30. Admission is free. The exhibition will be on-view in the gallery space (340 Delaware Ave.) until Nov. 11.
The creative practices of Zeyneb Johnson and Karle Norman have a similar flexibility of subject matter as well as a similar pervasive weight stemming from a core body of work that builds off of the trials and triumphs of their respective pasts. In some bodies of work, familiar and comfortable subjects are stylized, such as in the line-and-wash aerial landscapes of Norman or Johnson’s serene colored pencil renderings of individual plants and animals. In other work, each returns to the subject of the past and their trajectory to the present.
Zeyneb Johnson developed a body of images and writing that illustrated her fraught transition from Ethiopia to the US, work that culminated in the memoir Zeyneb’s Story. Karle Norman has long been creating images and objects that reflect on being exiled from a devout family due to differences in beliefs. The weight of this work doesn’t necessarily need to be affiliated with the other work. There’s an independent joy to the way in which those subjects are imagined. But at times that story adds an angle, as with Karle Norman’s Same Inside series that highlights the internal similarities between people despite their external differences. Or when Zeyneb Johnson draws an Ethiopian hut, it is both an earnest landscape study and a strong prompt of the past.
This exhibition focuses primarily on the work that is a bit outside of their respective story lines; a mixture of landscapes, object studies, and a wealth of ingenuity with how the images are built.
In addition to cards featuring the artwork, Johnson’s book of works and memoir Zeyneb’s Story, will be available for sale on site. Regular gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Karle Norman
Karle Norman
Zeyneb Johnson
Zeyneb Johnson
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