Elizabeth Zvonar (Canadian, b. 1972) is an artist based in Vancouver. She makes objects and pictures that think through metaphor and the metaphysical, often using humour and referencing art history. Zvonar graduated from Emily Carr University after having studied at the Aichi Gakusen University in Toyota City, Japan and the Hokkaido University of Art and Design in Sapporo, Japan. She has had solo exhibitions at SFU Audain Gallery, Vancouver; Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver; and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto. Her work has been exhibited at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Vancouver Art Gallery; Musee d’Art de Joliette, Quebec; and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. Zvonar has held residencies at Malaspina Printmakers, the Banff Centre, and was a City of Vancouver Artist in Residence 2012-15. She has received awards and recognition including the 2015 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation VIVA Award and was a finalist for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize in 2016. Her work was included in the 2021 Gestalten publication The Art of Protest, Political Art + Activism as well as the 2023 Phaidon publication Vitamin C+ Collage in Contemporary Art.
Part of the exhibition Aporia (Notes to a Medium) at the Belkin, Elizabeth Zvonar’s digital collage Gattamelata re-examines female representation to open up a rewriting of accepted histories, offering a space for projection and shifted consciousness. The work combines fragments of black and white representations of Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting Mona Lisa (1503-06), a cut-out silhouette of Donatello’s Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata (c. 1453) which depicts a military captain, and abstracted architecture of the Basilica of San Antonio (1232-1310), which, like the statue, is located in the Piazza del Santo, Padua. In Zvonar’s collage, the male figure on horseback is cut away so that a version of the Mona Lisa’s face appears through the void, with her arms – enlarged and coloured – serving as a grounding for all that she carries.
This presentation of Elizabeth Zvonar’s Gattamelata is a collaboration with the Walter C. Koerner Library made possible by the generous support of the Audain Foundation. Art in the Library offers new perspectives on contemporary art by presenting art that challenges our perceptions about the world around us.
Elizabeth Zvonar (Canadian, b. 1972) is an artist based in Vancouver. She makes objects and pictures that think through metaphor and the metaphysical, often using humour and referencing art history. Zvonar graduated from Emily Carr University after having studied at the Aichi Gakusen University in Toyota City, Japan and the Hokkaido University of Art and Design in Sapporo, Japan. She has had solo exhibitions at SFU Audain Gallery, Vancouver; Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver; and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto. Her work has been exhibited at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Vancouver Art Gallery; Musee d’Art de Joliette, Quebec; and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. Zvonar has held residencies at Malaspina Printmakers, the Banff Centre, and was a City of Vancouver Artist in Residence 2012-15. She has received awards and recognition including the 2015 Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation VIVA Award and was a finalist for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize in 2016. Her work was included in the 2021 Gestalten publication The Art of Protest, Political Art + Activism as well as the 2023 Phaidon publication Vitamin C+ Collage in Contemporary Art.
Aporia (Notes to a Medium) considers how history, mythology and wishful thinking entwine across media and through mediums. Artists include Colleen Brown, Azza El Siddique, Dani Gal, Katie Kozak and Lucien Durey, Mark Lewis, Jenine Marsh, Jalal Toufic and Elizabeth Zvonar.
[more]As part of the exhibition Aporia (Notes to a Medium), the Belkin's Outdoor Screen will show Mark Lewis's From Third Beach 1 (2010) daily from 9 am to 9 pm.
[more]This reading room offers resources relating to the themes and artists present in the exhibition Aporia (Notes to a Medium).
[more]Join artists Azza El Siddique and Jenine Marsh for a conversation about their practices and works in the current exhibition Aporia (Notes to a Medium).
[more]As part of the exhibition Aporia (Notes to a Medium), exhibiting artists Colleen Brown and Elizabeth Zvonar are in conversation with artist and writer Jamie Hilder.
[more]Join us for a talk by interdisciplinary artist Zach Blas, with a conversation to follow with Jayne Wilkinson.
[more]