Lexington, KY
Many are the reasons for making art: political protest, intellectual exploration, formal experiment, memorialization, visionary illustration, and so much more. Zanne Jefferies is driven by an alternate pursuit: love. Creating art is not the same as looking at it; what the artist achieves through her practice differs greatly from what the viewer gains. Normally art criticism considers the latter, but in the case of love, and in the case of Jefferies, the former is crucial. The care and attention she lavishes on a charcoal portrait of her granddaughter or on a sunny pastel of flowers indicates a great level of care and attention felt for these subjects in real life. But grandchildren and flora can only take so much love. Beyond a certain point, best to turn to paper. Jefferies fills the frame, as if she cannot get enough. In the exception that proves the rule, she does this even with a swirly abstraction that recalls the endpapers of Victorian books.
—Lori Waxman 3/23/17 3:34 PM