sound waves Drawing

human born 1975 Jodie Ohm Zutt is fast and terrifying. Like an animal clawing its way out of a hole in fear, Zutt scratches and smears across the surface of her compositions with a frantic energy. That is not to say that her work is out of control. On the contrary, Zutt has a studied hand. The compositions never lack in balance and design. These works are beautiful to look. Figures seem always to have a sense of weight and proportion that feels correct, no matter how distorted. These figures are anatomically incorrect, stretched and mutated to achieve a graphic sense of anxiety and violence. The point is not to recreate the world as it appears, but to recreate the world as it feels. Subjects may be anonymous, but there is always a fully realized human being trapped somewhere in their frenzied form. Zutt has a visual language that observes the strange and vicious interpersonal relations of the modern world with objectivity, and a health dose of pathos. The work is often strange and violent, but Zutt's hand is never cruel. The speed at which her work is created does not compromise the sense of tenderness within them. The urgency of Zutt is the urgency to capture the world as it passes by, from cautionary signage to news footage, Zutt races to harness the emotive aspect of a world that is often so cold and fleeting. No image is wasted here. She offers the audience a chance to take a second look at the world in reduced forms, isolated from their original context, composed in graphic color. The work is fast but it asks the audience to slow down, to trace their eyes where the hand has been, and to look beyond the politicized world and into a world that is based on the human condition. For Zutt, even the smallest gesture of the human body is packed with enormous power and is worth assessing.