Dan Zollinger

Every artist driven by a vision must one day make a leap of faith. The artist must face his or her work and say,no more is needed. This work expresses the vision. The artist sees the work from the inside; the artist knows the vision. So in a sense, the artist can never know the work. He or she can never really know if the vision inheres, in the end, in the work. And yet, without the leap of faith, the work will always cringe and mumble and seek to explain. It cannot trumpet. It cannot soar.

Dan Zollinger is an artist with a vision who has made his leap of faith. From the explicable, the orderly, and the complete, he has passed, as if through a shimmering curtain, into a world of gold and shadows, of whispers and portents; a romantic landscape peopled by heroes, saints, and martyrs. Moving easily between oil paints and digital media, he creates stippled spaces and colors that echo the Symbolists, especially Gustav Moreau....but he deploys his own set of images and narratives, with a combination of sensitivity to his subjects and confidence in his idiom. The force of his faith in his work allows us to escape the everyday and participate in his world of high drama, of rich pageantry, of grief and revelation and love.

Looking at his work is like stepping into the lair of a magician. One feels a tremor of fear, and then one crosses the threshold, and every single thing comes to breathtaking life.