Zoe Bray will talk about how painting portraits helps her connect with the people who pose for her and their cultures in a free presentation Wednesday.
A social anthropologist and portrait painter who lives in Jerusalem, Israel, is visiting Carson City to talk about her art and the process she undergoes to make it.
The Capital City Arts Initiative is hosting Zoe Bray at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Carson City Community Development Building, 108 E. Proctor St. A reception for the artist starts at 6:15 p.m.
Bray, an artist in the realist tradition, paints people and places with the question of identity being central to her work. She will talk about her paintings and the processes she uses when subjects sit for their portraits — how and why she selects a particular person. Her paintings are all done from life, with the model sometimes posing for several weeks. She will describe how portrait painting serves her to discover and connect with the diverse people of Jerusalem.
Bray trained as a painter at the Charles Cecil Studio and the Florence Academy of Art in Italy, and with internationally known painters Antonio Lopez Garcia and Guillermo Munoz Vera.
Bray’s art is included in public and private collections in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil and the United States. Her most recent solo exhibition, Identities, at Reno’s Metro Gallery in 2013, included portraits from contemporary Basque American culture, including Reno artist Joan Arrizabalaga and JT Restaurant owner, Marie-Louise Lekumberry.
Bray earned a master’s in social anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Between 2011 and 2015, she was Professor in the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. She’s presently Visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As part of her CCAI visit, she will talk to art students and faculty at Sierra Nevada College.
The presentation and the reception are free.
The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered organization that supports artists and the arts and culture of Carson City and the surrounding region. It sponsors art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects. For more information, go to arts-initiative.org.
