Giving and taking, adding or subtracting; both artists play with the body. Materazzi subverts the usual presentation of the female body, and Zsako adds in humor and eroticism to his paintings. Zsako points to the edges of our perception and the haptic, an almost-unfelt touch. Materazzi presents her body as a formalized and abstracted form. The gaze and a desire to touch is implied in both artists’ works.
In Materazzi’s work, the other is tacit in the tension in how she holds a grip, a contorted foot, implying a rigid energy, a coiled potential. In other works she relaxes into a languid pool, reminding us of the release that delivers us to a relaxed state, be it sensual, or derived from exhaustion, or through meditation or intoxication. How we connect, how we change states, both artists ask questions about connection and lack there-of.
*Credit to Kate Bush for the title
