Michelle Zalopany

Fountain

By Christie Artinger, Bryan Basile, Michael Killeen and Lauren Paul

Michele Zalopany is a renowned contemporary artist who is best known for her landscapes and marine themed artworks. Born in 1955 and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Zalopany was later educated at prestigious art institutions. Her natural ability, talent and drive led her to the Columbus College of Art and Design which she attended from 1973 to 1974. Zalopany then furthered her education at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in 1981.

Although her success in contemporary art has taken her throughout the world, including Italy and Germany, her strongest affiliation is with New York. Her work is represented in numerous public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Zalopany created Fountain in 1988. Using charcoal and pastel on paper adhered to canvas, she created the masterpiece that is now on display in the HC stairwell of Sacred Heart University. We feel that Zalopany designed Fountain as a public piece, due to its size, and many of the students, teachers, and staff of Sacred Heart University, who are now this work's audience, view it on a nearly daily basis.

Our group decided to analyze Fountain because we felt it displayed an intriguing use of simple and clean lines. This work is also very appealing to the eye, mainly because of the strong use of black and white. Zalopany, who is known for her black and white pieces, decided to work in these two colors primarily to distance her artwork from reality; that is, she did not want the images to be limited to a 'realistic' representation of something in the world. As black and white images, they would lend themselves to a wider variety of connotations.

The inspiration for Fountain was an actual fountain in the city of Caracaras, Venezuela. Although the fountain has no personal significance to Zalopany, she was attracted to its drama. The white beams are a striking element in this work and Zalopany explained that there is no symbolism behind these beams. Rather, she was attracted to the excitement the beams created in the dark. This image came from a 1951 book extolling the virtues of Caracaras for international investors.