Ray Zovar has never been the kind of person to lock himself into a single medium as an artist.
Ever since being a young child in Milwaukee, Zovar has been an experimenter. He is entirely self-taught as an artist, and has spent the majority of his life working to perfect and evolve his craft. He’s exhibited his art at shows across the U.S. for years, and Zovar’s art has decorated museums as well as the offices of Dane County’s largest employer, Epic.
During a visit to his downtown Stoughton studio and gallery earlier this week, this notion was immediately evident with the wide swath of two- and three-dimensional works adorning its walls. Many of Zovar’s two-dimensional artworks employ acrylic paints and resin, as well as display his passion for abstract expressionism.
Even more of his pieces, which are three-dimensional cylindrical sculptures, light up his shop with their vibrant changing colors. For those works, he paints colorful, geometrical patterns on fabric. He wraps the fabric around a 7-foot pig roaster, slowly turning the fabric as he pours resin over it. Zovar then puts LED lights inside the sculpture that change color.
Some of the three-dimensional sculptures are straight and tall. Others are short and wide. More are curvy.
Even more of Zovar’s works are mosaics, namely tables that resemble insects like butterflies.
A series of Zovar’s two-dimensional paintings, which were made with mixed acrylics and metallic elements under resin, is currently displayed inside Carnelian Art Gallery as part of its “Dreams In the Undergrowth” exhibition, which lasts until the end of June. Zovar’s series is justifiably titled “Dreams,” and onlookers of it may be reminded of celestial objects, or other objects in space.
Lately, Zovar has found himself desiring to experiment with something new.
He pointed to a piece in his gallery that employed bright teals, pinks, reds, yellows and purples. It’s an artwork Zovar even encourages those who stop by his gallery to touch.
“There’s so many different techniques … applications that somebody could wind up playing with,” he said of his process as he worked on his latest couple of similar pieces in his back studio, applying a teal color using a brayer. “I’ll probably end up wiping it off, but at least it gives you an idea of what can happen.
“Sometimes, I rely on gravity and I made sure that this table was perfectly level so whatever I put on it will stay wherever it is. The other thing is to pick it up and let gravity move the material.”
The finished piece doesn’t have a resin coat on hit, Zovar said.
“It has some texture to it,” he said. “It’s all water-born materials so (it’s going to hold up for a long time.”
When asked about Zovar’s inspirations, he said late Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, as well as the late Spanish painter Pablo Picasso. He also enjoys listening to jazz and jazz fusion tunes while he creates.
“I appreciate the depth in the work that I make,” Zovar said of being part of Dreams In the Undergrowth. “I hope that someone will come to Carnelian Art Gallery and peruse my work.”