2004--10"x8"x4"--Cast Bronze
1/20/08
1/19/08
Reviews
CAC reaches out for relevant material
by Michelle French
The works of Bay Area artists Diane van der Zanden and Lynn Tomaszewski are on display through March at the Chico Art Center's Depot Gallery.
van der Zanden's figurative sculptures with their rough surfaces range in technique from expressionistic to semi-abstract. Often, the elongated figures with their exaggerated genitals remind the viewer of African sculpture. There are eight of van der Zanden's sculptures on display, five of which comprise the series, "His Babymaker I-IV." "His Babymaker..." explores the age-old inequality between men and women and the oppression of women. "His Babymaker I" a glass and ceramic sculpture, shows a nude woman standing on a globe with strings of clear glass and a myriad of tiny ceramic babies falling from her uterus onto the round shape beneath her feet. The woman, whose expression is one of strained exhaustion, raises her arms to shoulder level. Her hands, raised slightly above her head, are turned palms up. On her head a naked man crouches, his genitalia prominently displayed, while he clutches at her hands for support. The man's expression is calm and serene.
"His Babymaker II " is a large single figure of a nude woman with a dark red pot on her head. She is thin, careworn, melancholy, drooping beneath her double burden--the pot she is carrying and her visible pregnancy. "Woman with Asphalt Heart" is the portrait of an aged woman with a tired face and an emaciated body. Her form rises from a rough, oblong block and she balances herself on her withered arms with her large hands splayed on either side of her waist. The "asphalt heart" of the title is an irregular blob that protrudes above her left breast. You're bound to have almost a visceral reaction to van der Zanden's powerful images. They shimmer with a fine, ironic, barely controlled anger. Her technique is an interesting blend of elegance and rawness. With the work of Diane van der Zanden and Lynn Tomaszewski the CAC seems to be reaching out for new, more exciting, and more relevant material in their shows.
Chico Enterprise-Record/Sunday, February 20, 1994
Reviews
On The Walls
by Elizabeth Kieszkowski
Chico Art Center--The CAC further proves its mettle with this exhibition of tough-minded, finely wrought figurative sculpture by Diane van der Zanden (themed "His Babymaker") and eye-pleasing, ambiguous large-scale "paintings" by Lynn Tomaszewski, of copper patina and organic materials. Through Mar. 27. Orange and Fourth Streets. 895-8726.
Chico News & Review February 17, 1994
Reviews
MATRIX GALLERY: "INTERNATIONAL '93".
This show of primarily female artists is too numerous and variegated to describe here. But from afar we can tell you this: Berkeley-based figurative sculptress Diane van der Zanden is a hit. Her point-blank commentary on sex roles (titled "His Babymaker") deservedly took top honors. Reception June 12, 7-9pm. 1725 I St. 441-4818. Through July 2.
ART VIEW, June 1993
Babymaker II
1992--85"x22"x16"
Sorry for the odd color changes in the photgraphs of this sculpture. Part of it is becuase I painted it several times, and part of it is the photograph.
1987-1991
I graduated from the University of Oregon in 1987 and moved into a warehouse in the industrial/neighborhood area of West Oakland. A blighted, impoverished area that had been separated from the rest of Oakland by the elevated Cypress Street Viaduct of the 880 Nimitz Parkway Freeway. For two years, I lived two blocks from that structure, where it was normal to see a man walking the street with a wad of money in his hand and to hear gunshots, day or night.
I didn't do much in those two years. I was pretty scared, returning from the somewhat idyllic town of Eugene, Oregon where I rode my bike day and night. I finally decided to take some classes at Laney College and started a prolific period in my sculpture. I moved in 1999, and changed to an inexpensive studio in the Potter's Guild building in West Berkeley. I had access to three large kilns and created the larger sculptures, and experimented with firing glass in or on clay. The agreement was that I had to entirely move out twice a year to allow the landlord to sell her pottery.
I was being influenced by my surroundings and by the politics of the time when there was a huge attack on women's rights. And by California which is so rich and people seem to lose their souls there.
In West Oakland, I got very interested in Egyptian Mummies and The Bog People. I enjoyed studying the science and the aesthetics of the forms. I created many emaciated figures which, to me, reflected the high consumption that didn't provide tangible nourishment. Around that time, I had some sculpture at the Rosecrutian Egyptian Museum in San Jose.
I was invited to show my work in Sacramento and created the sculpture "Flowers for the Dead" specifically for a show called 3 Bad A's-Aids, Armament and Aparthied. I thought of it as a tombstone and a cynical offering to those who had died as a result of these political problems.
"Pressure" or "Gun in My Head" came from a converstion with a friend where he kept saying over and over, "I feel like I have a gun in my head. I'm so stressed out." Very simple idea, but it ended up in The Lite Rail Gallery in Sacramento during a fundraiser for Dianne Feinstein. Without thinking, asking or knowing what it was about, she had it moved to a storage room in the back of the gallery.
I also created "Capital Man" as an hommage to those who socialize for personal profit. I love trying these types of huge experiments, not knowing what would happen. I packed his empty eye with clay dollar signs and pieces of green beer bottle glass. I fired very slowly and the glass dripped down carrying the dollar signs. Two of them ended up on the jacket. Most fell onto the kiln shelf, but I was extrememly happy with my results.
I didn't do much in those two years. I was pretty scared, returning from the somewhat idyllic town of Eugene, Oregon where I rode my bike day and night. I finally decided to take some classes at Laney College and started a prolific period in my sculpture. I moved in 1999, and changed to an inexpensive studio in the Potter's Guild building in West Berkeley. I had access to three large kilns and created the larger sculptures, and experimented with firing glass in or on clay. The agreement was that I had to entirely move out twice a year to allow the landlord to sell her pottery.
I was being influenced by my surroundings and by the politics of the time when there was a huge attack on women's rights. And by California which is so rich and people seem to lose their souls there.
In West Oakland, I got very interested in Egyptian Mummies and The Bog People. I enjoyed studying the science and the aesthetics of the forms. I created many emaciated figures which, to me, reflected the high consumption that didn't provide tangible nourishment. Around that time, I had some sculpture at the Rosecrutian Egyptian Museum in San Jose.
I was invited to show my work in Sacramento and created the sculpture "Flowers for the Dead" specifically for a show called 3 Bad A's-Aids, Armament and Aparthied. I thought of it as a tombstone and a cynical offering to those who had died as a result of these political problems.
"Pressure" or "Gun in My Head" came from a converstion with a friend where he kept saying over and over, "I feel like I have a gun in my head. I'm so stressed out." Very simple idea, but it ended up in The Lite Rail Gallery in Sacramento during a fundraiser for Dianne Feinstein. Without thinking, asking or knowing what it was about, she had it moved to a storage room in the back of the gallery.
I also created "Capital Man" as an hommage to those who socialize for personal profit. I love trying these types of huge experiments, not knowing what would happen. I packed his empty eye with clay dollar signs and pieces of green beer bottle glass. I fired very slowly and the glass dripped down carrying the dollar signs. Two of them ended up on the jacket. Most fell onto the kiln shelf, but I was extrememly happy with my results.
1/15/08
Reviews
Alaskan tops field in Lode sculpture show
...Two of the more unusual combinations came from Robin Dintiman of Oakland and Diane van der Zanden of Berkeley.
van der Zanden's "Woman with Asphalt Heart" is a gaunt figure who resembles victims of Nazi concentration camps: head shaved, shoulders and ribs and hips little more than skin and bones, lips curved in plaintive speech. The figure was executed in clay, but a jagged outcrop of asphalt bursts from her left breast.
Modesto Bee
Sunday, June 13, 1993
1/12/08
1/11/08
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