Placing portraiture on a plane equal to the iconic universality of portraiture and fashion photography, the works of NYC-based Zie Otto are at once nakedly direct and difficult to see. His pictures tend to foreground aspects of his subjects, so as to give their whole figure a decided air of ambiguity. Oftentimes, like a movie director, he allows his subjects to hide behind a mask of emotional expressivity: a look concealing the subjectivity of the person who actually gives it.

In Americanoh-New Glory White Isaiah Earth the gender of the figure photographed is ambiguously situated behind a scrim of painterly white lines, as though the picture had been captured just moments after paint was spilled by casually raising a hand. What these confetti-like splinters of white suggest, however, is an aura of mock-celebration, as though the subject photographed was unambiguously tethered to a particular gender. On the other hand, these same blotches of paint are merely a scrim, and are not dense enough to conceal the chest of the person photographed, who is androgynously neither male nor female, but someone embodying the characteristics of both.

Exhibition Dates: March 13 - April 3, 2018

Reception: Thursday March 15, 2018 6-8 PM

Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat 11:00am – 6:00pm

Gallery Location: 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY

Event URL: https://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/Zie_Otto.aspx

Featured Artists:

Ellen Cuylaerts | Elena Gastón Nicolás | Daniel Loveridge | Zie Otto | Michael Victor ▪ MVR | Franck Sastre

About the Exhibition

Encounters: Nature and Culture

Encounters: Nature and Culture features six artists whose works highlight the underlying presence of subjectivity in all objective understanding. Starting with the depiction of realistic figures — be these painted or photographed — each work shows us how the hand of the artist ineluctably deviates from purely factual descriptions, delineating a world of imagined truth.

About Agora Gallery

Agora Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery located in the heart of Chelsea’s fine art district in New York. Established in 1984, Agora Gallery specializes in connecting art dealers and collectors with national and international artists. The art gallery’s expert consultants are available to assist corporate and private clients in procuring original artwork to meet their organization’s specific needs and budget requirements. With a strong online presence and popular online gallery, ARTmine, coupled with the spacious and elegant physical gallery space, the work of our talented artists, who work in diverse media and styles, can receive the attention it deserves. Over the years Agora Gallery has sponsored and catered to special events aimed at fostering social awareness and promoting the use of art to help those in need.