“At first glance Jean Zaleski’s paintings appear to chronicle the places that she has visited, the sites that have attracted her, and the immediacy and vigor of her response to these experiences. But as a critic who has followed her work for more than two decades, I have learned the true subject of Zaleski’s art is far deeper and more complex than it seems initially. Her richly hued paintings represent the many faceted artist: her childhood roots in Malta, and the self as realized through the places she continues to inhabit. Paradoxically, though Zaleski has spent much of her life in New York City, her paintings represent Nature—living forms, both plant and animal, and other structures that have become her world.”
—Joan Marter; Jean Zaleski, A Retrospective: Four Decades of Painting, Catalog, 2000
photo: Virginia Center for the Creative Arts