Geelong artist Keren Zorn is carving out her place in the arts with unique linocuts of furrowed faces. NOEL MURPHY steps into her studio.
FEW things in this world are more inscrutable than the human face.
A smile can be something altogether different to what it seems, a basilisk stare might be a look of concern, a grimace … well, maybe just that.
Which makes them a veritable trove of material and inspiration for the artist. If expression is what the artist seeks to achieve, there’s little better than the human visage for the artist’s expression and for expression within the subject, too.
But Geelong artist Keren Zorn confounds the norm by ensuring her artistic expressions remain deadpan.
Zorn’s faces, and what lies behind them, don’t give much away. It’s up to the viewer to make their own mind up about what might be behind the face.
Imagination, questions, gut feelings, whatever the emotion her faces evoke, they’re a viewer response. That’s why she won’t even name her subjects. They’re simply Man 1, Man 2 and so on.
It’s art; in the eye of the beholder.
Well, most of it. For Zorn, her art, her faces, are a life-time fascination in the five kilos of bone, skin, muscle, tissue and grey matter sitting on the human shoulders.
More in the latest Geelong Coast Magazine – in newsagents now.
