Wanting Hide, Armed Mark

Zappas’ work over the last several years has a distinct continuity. As her circular practice
transitions through an array of mediums—expanding and contracting between the spatial and
the flat—she maintains an interest in sculptural installation as a stage for reproduction. For
Wanting Hide, Armed Mark, she incorporates elements of both into a series of work including
tapestry weavings that were conceived and executed on a floor loom while teaching at Oregon
College of Art and Craft in Portland, Oregon in the Fall of 2016.
While tapestry is a new medium for Zappas, the circular representation of imagery pulled
through an array of media is a process in which Zappas is well versed. Her efforts in the studio
flow through respective mediums with no equivocation, suggesting a non-hierarchical fusion of
art, design, craft, concept, and ego. In Wanting Hide, Armed Mark, two large-scale woven paper
works, and a series of intimate photographs join the weavings, displaying a push/pull tension
that fully melds Zappas’ interest in the physicality of making with her ability to tread the thin line
between chaos and cohesion.
Consistent in Zappas’ output is the presence of the body, whether manifested photographically
or evidenced in handmade processes. Siting the body against a potpourri of patterned
references, Zappas puts an image to mental saturation. For this exhibition, Zappas has created
a new series of photographs—each shot totally in camera—which insist on the handmade, and
highlight small subtle gestures. While Zappas' work brushes against art historical depictions of
the female body and garish Op Art, it is hemmed in by a quiet, quotidian element. The everyday,
with its small pitfalls and victories, become a lens through which to see the constructs that we
inhabit: the commercial, cultural, and political.
Lindsay Preston Zappas (b. 1985) received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and attended
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief
of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), an L.A. based critical art magazine that began in

1. Recent exhibitions have included a solo show at City Limits (Oakland), a two person show at
   VACANCY (L.A.), and group shows at Small Editions (N.Y.) and Klowden Mann (L.A). Zappas has
   written for a number of publications including Art21, LACanvas, SFAQ, Carets and Sticks, and Carla.
   She has been part-time art faculty at Cal State Northridge, Fullerton College, and was recently
   visiting professor in the MFA department at Oregon College of Art and Craft.