“I want the work to seem so simple but then you can’t figure it out.
My name is Zuriel Waters and I’m a painter and fabric sculptor. I was born in Philadelphia but I grew up mainly in Portland, OR and when I was 16 I moved to San Diego and then I went to school at Rhode Island School of Design.
In this show I was trying to learn more about how to make horizontal shapes because I consider myself more of a figurative painter, the way I think about my paintings is really vertical and as if they’re portraits of aliens or some kind of robot. It was a hard shift because I think of them as floating on the wall and so that’s why they become alien like. They’re levitating to me and reference the 50s space age optimism.
There are 50s jello molds that have these kind of art deco curvy shapes to them and the bright colors of the era. This is where the title came from, Jello Moon and it’s sort of silly but I think it's hopeful in a way.”
