Ann Zahn characterized her retrospective show of etching, lithographs and relief prints at the Strathmore Hall Arts Center, which closed April 13, with the word "deliquescence," which means, according to
Webster's Dictionary, 'melting away in the course of growth or decay, branching into many fine divisions, becoming liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.'
All of these definitions suggest organic particles, processes of growth, and changes of form by dissolution are to be found in the protean forms of Ann Zahn's prints. Hers is an art of feeling, a sensibility that looks at the world in purely subjective terms. Were she a writer instead of an artist, the name of Proust comes to mind. Though she describes her way of working as drawing and sketching from life, nevertheless, paradoxically, objective reality in her prints is far from "realistic" as she seems to see everything filtered through the lens of her feelings...
Subjects that stir the artist's feelings most deeply involve the wild horses she was able to observe on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Here, in
Assateague Ponies #1, 1985, gaunt pot-bellied pregnant mares stand silhouetted against the sea, and in
Assateague Ponies #6, they are portrayed in expressionist colors on a deep red beach, making the most memorable of Zahn's images.
From 1988 on, Zahn became interested in adapting natural fibers into handmade paper, thereby increasing the textural range of her expression. A large collage piece,
Garden Journal I from that year, in lithograph and linocut, employs the fibers of bark of different trees which she prepared herself, for each one of the 12 months of the year that she illustrates. Her tour de force is perhaps the large 1990 print duo
Garden Journal II and III, 72x24 inches, in which a mosaic composed of two-inch images creates a book of days, one for each day of the year, in which some are black and white and others are rich in color, just as all of us experience the days of our lives. A beautifully done
color catalogue of the show was available at the reception desk.