Bil Zelman

Bil Zelman- Photographer
Born U.S.- 1972

Bil Zelmans way of making pictures reminds me of an early work by John Baldessari, a photograph from the mid-60s transferred to canvas and captioned by a sign-painter. The image shows the artist standing on the curb near his house. Dead space yawns before him, and a palm tree behind him appears to spring from his head like an unhealthy growth. The single word painted in the margin belowWrongrubs it in that conventional rules of visual composition have been broken. But theres the image anyway, not in the discard heap but on a museum wall, wrong in a dozen ways, but right in at least as many more, from its brash, self-conscious dumbness to its sly, subversive brilliance.

In Zelmans photographs, all sorts of things feel wrong: the edges of the frames slice off valuable facial features, arms and other errant body parts; expressions are too taut or too slack; lips purse or droop, and the same happens with eyelids, which seem in active battle with gravity, either forced open or succumbing to an irresistible weight. The people in this humble pageant, its safe to say, dont look their best.

Since Garry Winogrand, Larry Fink, Diane Arbus, William Klein and so many others, the ...

Solo Exhibitions-
2007Isolated Gesture at Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts- Blue Sky.
2006Isolated Gesture at Voice 1156 Gallery, San Diego, CA.
2002Isolated Gesture, University of California at San Diego.
2001Street Work, Nicole Dintamin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
(Review in Art Reviews, of LA Times by Leah Ollman- Nov. 16, 2001)
1994Solo exhibit (within a group event), Artists and Models.
Hallwalls Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Multimedia projections. Seventy-five pieces shown.
1993Solo exhibition, State Street Gallery, Albany, New York. Fifty-eight pieces shown.


Select Group Exhibitions/Public Collections-
2008 Portland Art Museum- Two pieces purchased.
2007Newspace Center for Photography, Portland OR, Among Us And Curious
2007Center for Fine Art Photography, MOCA, Ft Collins, TX, Interactions, one piece from Isolated Gesture selected.
2005Center for Photographic Art, Center Awards Exhibition, one piece from Isolated Gesture included.
2005Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego- Man With Red Straw, 1994, from Isolated Gesture entered into permanent collection.
2003Represented in Photo Los A...